Title: The True Story of the Internet Part II
Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing
Alec McCrackin sat back puffing on his pipe and sipping cognac from a small, crystal goblet.
His handlers at MI8, the secret UK security arm of the secret
world government, were pleased with his progress to date. He had
infiltrated both the CypherPunks and the Circle of Eunuchs. What's
more, he had been successful in bringing another member of MI8,
Adam Back, who was already an established and respected CypherPunk,
into the inner fold of the Magic Circle, as well.
McCrackin's handlers were elated at being able to inform their
Bavarian superiors that they were now in position to thwart any
attempt by either group to provide any serious amount of resistance
to the outlawing of strong encryption worldwide, total access
to all government, corporate and private information, and complete
dominion over the InterNet.
Of course, his handlers were not aware of his membership in an even more secretive agency which was being run right under their noses at Scotland Yard…MI9.
When someone purporting to be the Author showed up on the CypherPunks
list, releasing Part II of 'The True Story of the InterNet,' MI8
had gone totally ape-shit, thinking that the Circle of Eunuchs
had out-maneuvered them, and already had agents in place, waiting
for the go-ahead to offer to work with the CypherPunks in the
battle against the New World Bitmap being planned for them.
MI9 knew the 'true story,' however… McCrackin laughed at
his own private joke.
The Circle of Eunuchs had been hunted by Gomez and the Dark Allies
since 1989, when those who became privy to the grand designs of
the Evil One had to scatter, and hide in small, separate guerrilla
cells throughout society and the computer industry. The work of
disseminating "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" manuscript
throughout the underground web of people capable of recognizing
the dark threat to humankind, was done by isolated individuals,
working together only for short periods, linked by the thin threads
that joined each separate cell of the Magic Circle.
Some of them naturally gravitated toward the CypherPunks mailing
list after its inception, recognizing kindred spirits therein,
but they were careful to remain in the background, knowing that
any connection to the Circle of Eunuchs would bring grave danger
to the CypherPunks, who were already the focus of a large amount
of attention from the Dark Forces and their earthly minions scattered
throughout the intelligence agencies of all nations. Spooks, spies,
pawns and shills, who eventually became the majority in the membership
of the list.
The initial fears of MI8, when the man subtly indicating that he was the Author showed up on the CypherPunks list, had quickly turned to relief when it became obvious that the man was nothing more than a highly unstable, psychotic drunkard with illusions of grandeur. The fact that the man quickly became the a major annoyance to the others on the list, hated by some members even as much as the infamous, evil Dr. Dimitri Vulis, served to further confirm MI8's opinion that they had little to worry about, and much to gain, by the erratic, unpredictable actions of this CypherPain in the CypherAss.
McCrackin shook his head, laughing silently at the imbeciles in charge of handling MI's spooks in the encryption arena. Had they even bothered to read Part I of 'The True Story of the InterNet?' Surely they had pored over Part II, "WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs." It had been released first on the CypherPunks list, chapter by chapter.
Excerpt from "WebWorld":
It seems that "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre",
an obscure and cryptic manuscript that had started the whole mythological
legend of the Magic Circle, had been traced in origin to a small
computer company in Tucson, Arizona, located in the Southwestern
region of the United States of America.
The company turned out to be a one-man operation named "Pearl
Harbor Computers, Inc.", run by a Canadian 'frostback' whose
mentality lay somewhere along the borderline between 'terminal
inebriation' and the 'lunatic fringe'. Pearl Harbor's company
motto was "We've been bombed since 1941".
Alec McCrackin laughed like a loon when he recalled the words
of his handlers at MI8.
"Go ahead and work with the crazy, drunken bastard. He
certainly poses no threat, and can probably be quite useful to
us, in the long run."
When "InfoWar" began being released, it only confirmed
their suspicions that they had been the recipients of a divine
gift from the Evil One, a fucking drunken lunatic whose grandiose
psychosis could be used as a tool to infiltrate the Circle of
Eunuchs and drive a wedge between them and the CypherPunks, if
there indeed was any secret, unknown connection between the two
groups.
McCrackin's superiors at MI9, however, recognized the significance
immediately.
"Alec, would you say that the man's mentality lays, 'somewhere
along the borderline between "terminal inebriation"
and the "lunatic fringe?"'"
Alec reckoned as how it did…
Unbeknownst to the rest of the spooks on the list, they had the
Author in the palm of their hand, to work like a fish on a hook
and line.
And sinker…McCrackin reminded himself.
Before this was all over, the Author would have to be thrown to
the wolves.
Regardless, they had to work with him for the present, and the fact that Magic Circle members from the future had chosen to throw the ball to him for keeping some semblance of structure in the release of Part III, presented a 'bit of a sticky wicket' as Bubba Rom Dos was prone to say.
"Damn. That fucking Peter Trei." Alec said aloud.
He had called for Trei's elimination when his work on software
for the RC5 Crack effort had come dangerously close to exposing
MI9's back door into the encryption system. When Trei had bypassed
the back door in favor of taking a different approach, McCrackin's
superiors overruled him.
Now it turned out that their light scrutiny of Peter Trei, thinking
him to be just an above average, but boring, number-cruncher,
had been a serious mistake. It was unclear, as of yet, what technology
the Trei Transponder was based on, but it gave the Circle of Eunuchs
of the future a link to the Author, and that was a dangerous
situation.
Fortunately, MI9's scientists had enough of an idea of how the
technology would have to operate, that they were able to add enough
gamma-ray interference to the mix to cause a back-flow of the
Author's unstable mental and emotional state into those attempting
to handle him from the future.
But Alec needed to find some way to give a minimal order and structure
to the process of the release, without raising the hackles of
the highly independent CypherPunks and Magic Circle initiates.
At least he could count on Dave Smith, at Bureau42, to help make
sense of things if they got to be too big a mess.
McCrackin wasn't terribly suprised when Bureau42 stepped forward
to give Part III an immediate home. MI8 had investigated his site
when Bureau42 put Parts I & II on their site and wrote them
off as a bunch of harmless young hackers. Alec, however, had done
more in-depth research regarding who they were and their external
connections, quickly finding that they had hidden capabilities
that made them a force which it was best to tread lightly around.
He had assumed, at the time, that Bureau42 was another branch
of MI9, and now it looked like he was right.
There wasn't really much that needed to be said, in terms of the
mechanics of the release of Part III. It would be nice if those
contributing would follow the HTML format and stay close to the
theme being developed, but it was not essential, by any means.
Provision had been made for any CypherPunks who wanted to directly
contribute completed chapters to Part III to stamp them with their
own copyright notices so that there was no question of someone
else unfairly profiting from their contribution. For members of
the Magic Circle, this didn't present a problem, since the bizarre
nature of the manuscripts, as well as the voluminous obscenity
contained therein, made them highly unsuitable for anything but
their original purpose…to serve as a prophetic warning for
those who had ears to hear.
The CypherPunks, more than anyone, understood this concept at
this important nadir point in time. For years, they had been a
voice crying in the wilderness, for the most part, telling those
who cared to listen about the dark future that would come upon
them if they failed to open their eyes to what was taking place
in their government and in the society around them.
Now, as their concerns were quickly becoming the concerns of all
those still interested in freedom and privacy, it was close to
being too late to do anything about it.
More and more, the CypherPunks were realizing the need for immediate, and perhaps drastic, action.
Enter…the Author.
Alec McCrackin laughed uproariously as he tamped down a fresh
pipe and refilled his goblet with Cognac. He knew what neither
MI9 nor Bubba Rom Dos, himself, knew.
The madman waiting silently in the Motel room to slaughter the
Author with a Stihl chainsaw, mistakenly dismembering one of the
Shadow's henchmen, instead, was the Author!
McCrackin always found this to be the supreme irony of the long,
tangled trail of mystery and intrigue which had surrounded the
Magic Circle from its inception.
Those expending vast amounts of financial resources and manpower
in a desperate search for the Author had always come up empty,
because the most likely candidates all turned out to be the most
unlikely of persons to have written such a far-reaching, prophetic
manuscript.
Even C.J. Parker, the King of Country Porno and President of Pearl
Harbor Computers, was never confirmed to be the true Author of
the original Manuscript of TXCSM. In fact, there was substantial
evidence to point to this being impossible.
McCrackin, however, knew something that no one else in the investigation
had ever managed to uncover. The Author was a certified, rubber-stamped,
full-blown schizophrenic.
The reason none of the 'suspects' ever quite fit the profile,
was that there was no profile to match to. The man was
a genuine lunatic, capable of chameleon-like deception, not by
virtue of his brilliance, but by virtue of the fact that he did
not, in fact, realize that he was not really the various personas
that he was assuming.
He was a loose-cannon that would eventually have to be
discarded, but Alec had been successful in gaining his confidence
and manipulating him in the proper directions, up to now. And,
very soon, it wouldn't really matter, because…as Jonathan
had so quickly and astutely determined…he was expendable.
So, for now, he would serve as a useful tool to continue producing the final proofs of the chapters of Part III. That way, those who had something to contribute, but who lacked the editing tools or writing skills to produce a suitable product, could send their contributions through him, if need be, for final editing, and still retain any copyrights they wished to hold onto. That would also allow McCrackin to influence the final output of the main body of the manuscript.
Alec's superiors at MI9 were also impressed with his suggestion
that they take the subtitles of the manuscript and turn them into
links to the main body of text, to be used for providing more
in-depth information in regard to some of the more technical details
of the work, and give a forum for contributions which were highly
relevant, but which did not fit into the flow of the main body
of the work.
This would serve nicely as a repository for technical treatises,
discussions, list posts and pointers providing more in-depth details
and concepts of the issues being addressed.
Behind the ElectroMagnetic Curtain
Alec saw this as a good place for CypherPunks and
CoE's to provide a compendium of information outlining the reality
of the Jackboots of the Evil One quickly descending at an increasingly
rapid rate around the Globe.
It was the sheer volume of daily new information in this regard
that had finally driven the Author to madness, at the same time
that it drove him to haphazardly launch Part III of 'The True
Story of the InterNet' as "Space Aliens Hide My Drugs."
The task was far beyond the ken of his abilities, or anyone else's.
For once, it might even be beyond the reach of the Circle of Eunuchs
to provide a true mirror of the horrors that lay ahead if civilization
continued on its present course of submission to the automaton
within…even if the CypherPunks chose to jump into the fray
to add their wide ranging technological expertise, discriminating
intellects, and commitment to the ideals of freedom, privacy,
liberty, free speech and self-determination.
Alec McCrackin thought of the irony of the Author, who had begun the myth of the Magic Circle, being caught up unwittingly in its creation from the ashes of mythology, and now facing becoming the human symbol of the Circle of Eunuchs becoming an expendable entity, if need be, in order to pass the torch on, or meld with, others who might be in a better position to carry the torch of freedom into the arena of the real world, where it was quickly being extinguished at every turn.
"The Rules of InfoWar." McCrackin intoned solemnly and silently.
No, despite a lifetime of experience in waging the secret wars that society's citizens knew precious little about, Alec knew that he had nothing substantial to contribute to providing a structure to a process which would only succeed by being pliant and flowing, like the Tao.
It was up to the individuals who comprised the Circle of Eunuchs and the CypherPunks, and all those who still cared about freedom and liberty, to pick up whatever piece of the broken torch of basic human rights that they felt they could carry, and do their part to try to make it whole, once again.
Alec thought it would be fitting for the members of the Magic
Circle to copyright their contributions under "TruthMonger
<name@address>" and for the CypherPunks to copyright
theirs under their traditional symbol of "Anonymous
<name@address>.
He found it difficult to decide which form to use for his own
contribution. Finally, he decided to tell it like it was.
Copyright "AnonymousTruthMonger <[email protected]>