Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing
? the Lunatic was sitting at his keyboard, trying to concentrate, but it was increasingly difficult as the number of pickets outside his house grew larger.
He had used his weekend pass to go to his house in Bienfait, as usual, to work on his secret project. However, his project didn't seem to be as secret as it used to be. Now he had dozens of anti-nuclear demonstrators picketing outside, day and night.
Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned he was building a nuclear bomb
on the InterNet.
Subject: Re: Nightmare Scenario: Public Key Distribution Controlled
From: John Young <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Does the following provision of the amendment lighten Tim's dim glim?
§ 2804. Encryption products manufactured and intended
for use in the United States ...
(d) USE OF PRIOR PRODUCTS LAWFUL.-- After January 31, 2000, it
shall not be unlawful to use any encryption product purchased
or in use prior to such date.
[Bottom page 13]
That gives about 450 days to widespread stego, surrept onions and backchannels to prepositioned stashes.
Or, say to hell with it, coders will forever evade USCoders.
Jonathan was trying to explain to the other members of the Magic Circle gathered around the table that the information Adam Back had accessed to write a chapter for 'InfoWar' had not been part of the InformEnergy that had been sent to ? the Lunatic through the Trei Transponder.
"Who the hell is '? the Lunatic'?" Priscilla asked, perplexed.
"It's the current Net persona assumed by our madman. Our contact to the past, except that he's away from the 'Home' for the weekend and we can't contact him." the Cowboy didn't look very happy with the situation.
"Oh, Uuhh…why can't I think of his name?" Priscilla looked puzzled, once again.
"None of us can." Alexis said, glumly. "Not even himself."
Each of them looked at one another and silently agreed that they 'weren't going to go there,' as the saying was in the era they had been studying. None of them really wanted to face the full import of what this curious mental energy tie to a madman from the past meant for their own future.
"We won't get fooled again."
Where did that thought come from?
? the Lunatic could no longer tell where any of his thoughts were
coming from. Or where the hell they were going to,
for that matter.
He seemed to be safe from the ThoughtPolice and the MindThieves
as long as he was at home on the weekends, wearing his 'special
hat'. He had managed to sneak some aluminum foil out of the kitchen
at the 'Home' and make another 'special hat,' but that one didn't
work, for some strange reason.
Maybe they were putting something in the water…
But that still wouldn't explain how Adam Back had managed to tap
into Jonathan's dream that ? the Lunatic had had the night before
he left the 'Home.'
How did Back get that information? And why was ? the Lunatic having
dreams that didn't belong to him? He knew he was crazy, he had
resigned himself to that long ago, but at least it was his
craziness, back then. Now it seemed to be somebody else's craziness
that was inside his head.
"Maybe everybody's craziness!"
Where the hell did that thought come from?
? the Lunatic knew that something weird was going on, but he really
didn't want to think about it right now…or about what it
portended for his future.
Subject: Re: Real issue of crypto controls: security or taxation
loss?
From: Robert Hettinga <[email protected]>
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Fred Hapgood wrote:
> Health and security are the governing superstitions of
our age.
Hmmmm... "My country 'tis of thee, land of gerontocracy"...
:-).
> What are you saying here? That we should be arguing that
encryption should be
> permitted because it will allow people to avoid paying taxes?
I'm afraid the set
> of people that would respond well to that argument is not
was large as you would
> hope.
Amen. I, for one, say that the only hope is technological. If
you make commerce and
finance cheaper without book entries, then book entry taxation
and regulation go away.
Hope we don't get fooled again, and all that, but at least
you don't have Archie*
looking up your dress anymore...
Cheers,
Bob Hettinga
*WWI pilot expression for anti-aircraft fire. Named for a music
hall
character with very shiny shoes. Hmmm^2. A cypherpunk neologism,
anyone?
I'll use it if you will...
-----------------
Robert Hettinga ([email protected]), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and
antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable
to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
"Who the fucking hell is Robert fucking Hettinga?"
The Cowboy was getting more and more pissed off at the others
around the old oak table bringing people up in their conversation
who he had no idea of who the hell they were.
He didn't realize that the people bringing up their names had
no idea who the hell they were, either. "Well, Alexis?"
Alexis looked confused, and just shrugged her shoulders.
"CypherPunk." Jonathan said, without looking up from the charts he was building with the paper and Crayons that he had fabricated with information he had found in the Museum of Antiquities archives.
Jonathan drew several more lines between the various coconspirators
in the plot against the CypherPunks list before he noticed that
everyone around him had gone silent, and that they were waiting
for him to continue.
He looked up, sheepishly.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude, it's just that my attention span…"
Nobody was paying any attention to Jonathan. They were all lost
in various small tasks which seemed to consume all of their consciousness
and want more, as they were drawn deeper and deeper into…
Into what…?
"Nuke D.C." Bubba shouted, bringing everybody
up out of their chairs, shaking in their collective boots.
Bubba sat a bottle of "Bubba's Special Reserve" on the
table and gave everyone a fresh shotglass. Two ounces of 'liquid
attention' later, Jonathan resumed speaking as if he had never
stopped.
"Crypto-Financier extraordinare." Jonathan said. "The Father of eCa$h."
Jonathan was lost in thought for a moment, wondering how to further
describe Hettinga's role in the late 1990's that was the main
focus of their present concern, and added,
"Basically, he came out of nowhere to become a major player
in a cross-breed between two of the most important areas of his
time…finance and encryption.
"He was a big fish in a small pond, but it was a pond full
of fish which were evolving, instead of moving toward extinction
and…" Jonathan paused to reflect on what he knew
of Hettinga's overall history, "…he was a shark."
"No one could ever quite figure out whether he was a con
man, a government shill, or the front-man for some very powerful
figures who wanted to remain in the background so that they could
hold on to the reins of the dying financial empires at the same
time that they were grasping hold of the new, evolving world of
Electronic Finance.
"Regardless, he was a player."
"He was a player…" Jonathan said, looking down, once again, at the chart of conspirators which seemed to ebb and flow like the eternal Tao, with everything and everybody becoming its opposite when viewed from a different perspective.
Subject: Real issue of crypto controls: security or taxation loss?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
What is the real issue here, what makes the govt so insistent about wanting to ban crypto? What is such a threat to them that it makes them pass laws that are profoundly against the US constitution?
What causes their panic?
To this, all I can find of enough magnitude to put them in such
state is that they just recently *truly* realized that crypto
will, infinitely more than to threaten the security of the state,
threaten their very existence by putting them outside of the money
loop.
To paraphrase somebody, "individuals recognize taxation as damage and routes their e$ around"
I think that *this* debate should be injected in the population
and the *bogus* "national security" debate should be
dismissed as, just that : bogus.
Any comments about why we should *not* put most emphasis on the
financial aspect of crypto?
Ciao
jfa
--
Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds(Montreal) QC Canada
JFA Technologies, R&D physicists & engineers
Instrumentation & control, LabView programming.
PGP keys: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon
and: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html
PGP ID:C58ADD0D:529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891
PGP ID:5B51964D:152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C
? the Lunatic knew that the next posts in this thread would be about, before they even showed up on the list, and he knew who they would be from.
Hettinga was moving the focus of his veiled attack on the CypherPunks
list from Tim May to the rationale behind the CypherPunks and
their basic objectives.
Hettinga would post apparently friendly posts with subliminal
messages about perverts peeking up skirts with their shiny shoes
(encryptionpervertsencryptionperverts) while schills like Avon
would back his efforts to shift the CypherPunks focus away from
privacy and toward financial encryption.
AvonSpookAvonSpook.
? the Lunatic typed on his keyboard, psychically willing his thoughts
onward toward their ultimate goal, though he had no idea where
that might be, so that unknown others would see what was so familiar
to him as the mark of the schills and pawns in the deadly game
that the secret government of Gomez and the Dark Allies was playing
with the CypherPunks minds. Subliminal mind-games meant to shift
the directions and bearing of the minds they played with, shifting
them 'ever so subtly' in new directions, until their thoughts
were so twisted and convoluted that they eventually went nowhere
at all.
> To paraphrase somebody, "individuals recognize taxation
as damage and routes
> their e$ around"
Using a parody of John Gilmore's legendary battle cry against
censorship as a tool to serve the MoneyMongers.
"Thank God for TruthMonger. Thank God for Anonymous."
"Thank God for Distributed Mind!"
Where did those thoughts come from?
? the Lunatic looked furtively around, in his mind, as if it were
a large, dark space where the shadows at the edges formed the
shapes of figures which were not his.
"Who goes there? Friend or Foe?"
? the Lunatic found himself on his feet in front of his laptop,
his dog, Baby, looking around inquisitively, wondering where those
he was talking to were hidden. Baby started barking and running
around frenetically, exploring every hidden corner of the house
before coming back to ? the Lunatic's side and licking his hand.
"We won't get fooled again!"
This time, ? the Lunatic recognized it as a voice from his
past, but who?
Softly, he asked out loud…"Who?"
Subject: Re: Real issue of crypto controls: security or taxation
loss?
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 01:22:07 +0200
From: Gary Howland <[email protected]>
To: [email protected], [email protected]
> Any comments about why we should *not* put most emphasis
on the
> financial aspect of crypto?
I disagree. I think they want to read your mail. I don't believe
they are
scared of "digital bearer bonds" etc., although I do
believe that this is the
most hyped issue on these mailing lists ...
Also, you will find that the govt does *not* want to ban financial
crypto
- it only wants to ban encryption - so how can you argue that
they are
panicking because of the financial aspect of crypto? You can't.
They panic because they can't read your mail.
Gary
--
pub 1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22 Gary Howland <[email protected]>
Key fingerprint = 0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D 1C 89 1D BE 1F EE
09 06
Bubba Rom Dos lay quietly on the thick Afghani rug in the center of the room, a gift from G. I. Gurdjieff, one of his mentors and students.
"A teacher of metaphysics." was the simple way Gurdjieff described himself.
Bubba had grown increasingly troubled by the burgeoning effect
that the energy transfers from the Trei Transponder had been having
on all of them since their first use of it.
The ragged remnants of the Magic Circle had taken a bold and desperate
gamble in creating it from the small amount of information they
had on its original structure and the concepts upon which it worked.
One thing they had been certain of, however, was that if the Evil
One had ordered it banned and all existing models of it destroyed,
then there must be some function inherent in it which makes it
a bane of the Dark Forces.
And anything that was, in the heart of its essence, an antithesis
to the Evil One, to Gomez and the Dark Allies, would inevitably
prove to be propitious for the Circle of Eunuchs. Of that much,
Bubba was absolutely certain, beyond doubt.
If it didn't kill them…
? the Lunatic was at a loss to understand why and how he was becoming increasingly clear as to what was taking place in his mind and in the world around him.
He had been TruthMonger…he knew that now.
But so had others. It was a multi-user personality that had been
used by the Circle of Eunuchs to share communications between
the small, independent cells of guerrillas spread throughout the
globe. It had served to act as a contrary force to the increasing
hold that the subliminal messages of the Dark Forces were having
on the generation which had been thrown into a rapidly developing
world where information and communication ruled the roost, and
where those that ruled the medium which spawned their progeny
would rule the world, by default.
"Rule the InterNet Rule the World"
~ the Head Hacker
TruthMonger messages were a tellurian reflection of the macrocosm
around them which cried out for balance, above all things.
Whenever the Universe became bent too out of shape, in one direction
or another, the Law of Balance would snap it back into place…in
a cataclysmic orgy of rectification, if need be. While the Forces
of Light and the Forces of Darkness fought their grand battles
on the field of human kind, the Tao watched and waited, favoring
neither one nor the other…determined that neither should
triumph…that order and chaos would govern as peers, or perish
and be reborn in never-ending tempestuous cycles, as enemies.
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there
is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there
is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other:
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.
Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching
no-talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without
cease,
Creating, yet not.
Working, yet not taking credit.
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.
TruthMonger, whoever it might be at any given point in time, was
a persona that was the antithesis of itself.
That's the way Bubba Rom Dos always described it, and he was,
despite his many shortcomings, the Chief Non-Spokesperson for
the Circle of Eunuchs, just as Tim C. May was the Chief Non-Spokesperson
for the CypherPunks.
Symbolically speaking, of course.
As a matter of actual practice, TruthMonger and Anonymous served
as the traditional Chief Spokespersons for the Magic Circle and
the CypherPunks, respectively. Under these personas, members of
both assemblages were able to make any statement, take any stance,
hold forth any belief, value, or ideal, without their communications
bearing any of the burdens of their normal Net personas.
They represented the Tao of Electronic Communication.
? the Lunatic reached for the bottle of Jim Beam that had mysteriously
appeared on his desk as he read the chapter of Part III which
had been contributed by Adam Back.
Had Adam Back actually managed to hack the FAPI module, based
on ? the Lunatic's dream? Jonathan's dream, actually.
A dream that ? the Lunatic had shared with no one…
He knocked back a shot and thought about the 'Death of the CypherPunks'
which had been announced far and wide toward the end of the 'moderation
experiment' on the CypherPunks mailing list.
And he thought about the InfoWar, which had somehow been born
and died within the exceedingly short period of time, mysteriously
intertwined with the beginning of the 'moderation experiment /
censorship crisis,' the death of the 'old' list, and the birth
of the new, 'distributed' list which had risen like a Xenix from
the ashes.
"Where the hell did InfoWar go?"
? the Lunatic jumped out of his chair once again, with Baby jumping up in unison, once again looking quizzically at her human companion.
The voice was real! It was as real as any voice ? the Lunatic
had ever heard. It wasn't his voice, but it wasn't a foreign
voice, either.
It was the voice of neither friend nor foe…the voice of the
Tao? It certainly didn't fit the description of the still, small
voice said to be the 'whisper' of the Tao.
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
? the Lunatic felt Baby pawing at his leg and he looked down at
her to see her looking back up into his eyes. She lowered her
paw and sat beside him, holding his gaze, as if seeking to communicate
something. Was he going crazy?
Baby whined just a little, but continued to stare into his eyes,
as if she was attempting to share some marvel with him.
Baby whined, once again, and he knew from her tone that he was
right, but he had no idea what she was trying to communicate.
Instinctively, ? the Lunatic reached over to his computer and
searched for a synonym for 'marvel'…phenomenon!
"You heard it, too!" he said, looking at Baby, as unbelieving as he was certain that he was not only right, but that he had finally lost what little was left of his rational mind.
Baby jumped up into his arms, sending them both crashing onto the futon that lay on the floor in front of his laptop. She licked his face and wagged her tail like never before, waited for him to hug her, and then went over to lay down in the corner and watch him as he returned to his thoughts and his writing.
"It was the voice of the 'ten thousand things.'" he
typed on the keyboard, with the words appearing on the laptop
screen as if an apparition which might quietly fade away if he
did not make them real with his own voice.
"It was the voice of the ten thousand things."
he said out loud, and suddenly, he understood.
It was the voice of Distributed Mind…