Will Bell get the rest of us in trouble?

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 11:21 AM -0700 6/3/97, Asgaard wrote:
>On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Tim May wrote:
>
>>>I believe I'm under a fair risk of being named as a co-conspirator
>>>of Bell's...
>
>But on the contrary, I clearly remember that you were one of very
>few who actually warned Jim Bell in clear language that he might be
>crossing the line in some particular rants, where he parted from the
>more or less pure theoretical level of discussion and hinted 'threats'
>at almost-named 'targets'. Of course, he was in many peoples killfiles

Indeed I did, and this was before I knew anything about his (alleged)
seeking out of home addresses of IRS agents and (alleged) stink bomb
attacks on IRS offices.

However, the focus, at least for why he has been denied bail, is strongly
on the "assassination politics" essays and communications, and on
"overthrowing the government" sorts of things. (This according to the
affidavit, and according to what Greg Broiles relayed from Bell's
court-appointed lawyer.)

I expect some of my writings are involved...it would be hard for them _not_
to be on Bell's computer, or even printed out.

(Bell originally proposed his AP in Usenet discussions, and was vague on
possible payment mechanisms. He know nothing to speak of about public key
cryptography and untraceable digital cash. Hal Finney referred him to my
writings on how untraceable digital cash could be used to set up
untraceable contract assassinations, and Bell joined the Cypherpunks list
soon thereafter. This was in the fall of 1995. I have always argued that
Bell's AP is just a gimmicky form of the more direct approach: using
anonymous contact mechanisms and untraceable digital cash to directly
arrange hits on those one wants dead. With third-party anonymous escrow
services to hold the untraceable cash (and uncashable to them, probably,
but not necessarily) until confirmation of the death has occurred.

This is not advocacy of this system, just exploration of the implications
and possible effects of strong cryptography. And I've been exploring these
ideas since 1987...my 1988 "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" explicitly refers
to this use of untraceable payments. And Chaum has elliptically referred to
such uses, though he is an order of magnitude more circumspect than I am.

(I don't have a company to sell to other companies, or products to get
endorsements and export approvals and all that for. I can afford to examine
implications and even see how the work fits in with my political views
without fear of offending either Bill Gates or Marc Rotenberg...or even
Louis Freeh.)

I hope they come to my house to ask me about my writings. I will tell them
that unless they have a search warrant (or arrest warrant, or probable
cause to arrest me there on the spot) they'll have to get off my property
immediately. I have been reading with great interest the advice given by
Duncan, Greg, and others, and I intend to provide no help to the Feds, nor
to give them any information beyond my name, nor to let them ask me about
my own writings. I will demand that I be arrested and then given a lawyer
(I certainly don't plan to write out a check for $5000 to some local city
lawyer just because they've hauled me in...I'll let a court-appointed
lawyer do the grunt work). If they linger on my property without providing
a valid search or arrest warrant, I will give them a count of 30 and then
start firing. People have a right to defend their property against unlawful
incursions by the Feds and the local cops. A 30-count seems like more that
enough time for them to get off my property.

(If you think this is unlikely, recall the Founding Event of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, the appearance of FBI agents at the rural home of John
Perry Barlow to interrogate him about matters regarding Operation Sun Devil
(or maybe it was the nuPrometheus League case...my memory has faded).
Barlow was so incensed at the cluelessness of the FBI agents and their
interrogation of him that he called Mitch Kapor to suggest something be
done. Gilmore got involved soon thereafter. Thus was the EFF born.)


>*Why is it that people of finer (?) English heritage often has a double
>second name? Someone once suggested to me that it originates from having
>(or an ancestor having) adopted the name of both one's 'marital' father
>and one's biological father, for reasons of property inheritance, but
>I never believed that one. Just curious.

I don't know. But I've noticed some Swedish double names, too. Same mystery
as why some lawyers put "Esquire" after their name, the canonical
yuppie-fake Brit name being:

"Winston Smith-Yates, III, Esq."

Yuppies in the U.S. have often gone to the "feminist-friendly"
hyphenization of their names, claiming it gives their children both names.

(Oh yeah? It just pushes the problem one level deeper in the stack, as
_their_ children than have to contend with being "Suzie
Smith-Yates-Hallam-Baker." I like the Icelandic solution where girl
children are "Suziesdottir" and boy children are "Winstonsson.")

Oh, and in the U.S. it is often the women who go for these hyphenated
names, while their husbands stick to the less awkward single name. Seems
sexist to me, but it's their choice to stick themselves with these
career-limiting hyphenated names. (We used to have a woman engineer at
Intel with one of these hyphenated Yuppie names...I'm sure our jokes about
her overly long name did not help her gain any respect.)

(New Age yuppies in America also like to do really, really stupid things
like combining their names into neologisms like combining Rotenberg and
Froomkin, just to pick two examples out of the air (:-), into travesties
like "Rotenkin." Or New Age nonsense like "Skysinger" and "Dolphinplay.")

--Tim May-Heden, I, non-Esq.







There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."