Re: Br'er Tim and the Bug Hole

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

At 12:10 am -0500 on 11/21/97, bureau42 Anonymous Remailer emetted (see?
wasn't *that* easier than what you used?):


> Aw, bullshit, Bob! You were wrong when you started this fuckfest
> and you're digging yourself deeper and deeper with every post.
> There was a time when I thought you had a brain and a modicum of
> common sense, but you've thoroughly disabused me of that fantasy.

Don't get your apparently fantastically-abused panties in a bunch.

Frankly, I don't give a squalling, um, fuck, what you, or anyone else,
thinks about me. In fact, given the heaping helping of offal you've offered
below, the worse you think about me, the better, I guess I'd say.

I'll write what I want, when I want, and post it where I want to. That's
what your killfile is for, bunky. If you don't like what I say so much, use
it.

> I once visited your website and thought, "This guy is cool!"
> Geez, I'm embarrassed to admit that now.

Good. Stay that way. I really don't give a damn. But, be careful:
Embarrased, red faces like yours make great helicopter targets, I'm told.
:-). Even in the dark...

> You've taken Tim's comments out of context and done yeoman work
> for the enemy.

No, I haven't. The "enemy"? So, it's a "war", huh? Sounds like you need to
go to work, yourself, (for a living?) and find out how reality actually
functions a while, before you go declaring "war" on the "enemy" at the drop
of a hat.


Folks, the "war" ain't here, okay? It ain't gonna be here anytime soon,
either. Anyone who wants to go out and start it, as Tim has seeming
delusions of, is really stupid, or worse, nuts.


> If (or when) they ever find an excuse to bother
> him, they won't be showing _his_ posts to the jury -- they'll
> be showing _yours_, you clueless fuckwit.

Nope. What they'll probably do is go pester him about something clueless,
something trivial and probably unrelated, and he'll show up at the door,
expecting MIB (Men in Balaclavas), and start a shootout. That's the
accidental version, anyway.

Of course, if Tim stays holed up, playing Old Man of the Mountain, and
nothing happens because nobody's listening to him anymore, maybe someday
he'll go out and *make* something happen, of course. Nonetheless, his
writing here won't do anything but be an excuse for someone to go harrass
him, probably provoking something accidental, particularly if he's waiting
for them with loaded weapons. See above.

> This is the age of "social convictions," in case you haven't
> noticed because you've been living in an e-cave. They don't
> prove cases anymore; they show that you're a "bad actor."
> It's all done with PR, whether totally in the press or partly
> in a courtroom. The first piece of paper the feds send out
> when they attack someone is a press release. The victim often
> first learns he's in trouble when the reporters call.

Which, of course, proves my earlier point which started this very thread.
Tim appears to be deliberately provoking this kind of crap, whatever his
purposes.

"Please, B'rer Fox, don't throw me into that briar patch!". I said that,
remember?

You'll also remember that I called it utter bullshit then. To paraphrase
myself. :-).


It's the day after Thanksgiving, folks. Do you know where *your* black
helicopters are? I thought so...

Give me a break...


There's one line in the latest Jim Bell continuance which says it all. It's
the Judge's clear statement that he's clueless about all this crypto stuff,
and that he's going away to think about it a bit. Now, *that* seems to me
to be an open invitation to someone, if legally possible, to go and
straighten him out on the subject of cryptography, as a friend of the
court, or something. A lawyer who knows about crypto could probably just go
do this, and make all this Guilt-by-Cryptography crap go away. And, if
there *had* been someone there from the beginning, we wouldn't be having
all this built up FUD-potential when they send Bell up the river for
whatever they can think of, just because he's had the "brilliance" to
combine Tim's quite old idea of cryptoanarchic assasination markets with
the stuff the Idea Futures folks are doing for fun. Cheez. Whadda
brainstorm that musta been...

Now, I may be whistling past the graveyard, here, but.... naaawww,
forgadaboudit, I'm not an idiot, and the Apaco-FUD around here isn't going
to get to *me* either, so I'll go out on a limb, here, with a prediction:

--->>>Those "black helicopters" are never going to land, boys and girls.
Especially as far as the Bell case is concerned. Ever. <<<---


Oddly enough, I expect that Bell *is* singing, ironically, like a canary.
Hence the sealed indictments, or whatever. Given all the goodies they found
him playing with besides AP, they were probably listening to everything he
said, hanging on his every word. Most attention he ever got in his life, I
bet. Until, of course, they figured out that his "conspiracy" was just Jim
Bell, that all the "co-conspiritors" he's "fingering" never wanted anything
to do with him.

Including Tim, who's gone on record here, many times, as saying what a
one-track, waste-of-time, loon Bell was.

Until lately, anyway. Now Bell's some kind of hero, or something. Go
figure. Maybe Tim's missing all the attention Bell's getting. Or something.


> Maybe you're too young, child.

Spoken like a child, yourself. Child, grow thyself?

> The world is not figuring things
> out fast enough or on a large enough scale to offset the
> accelerating advance of the state. Tim has been around long
> enough to have figured out that the statists have pissed away
> his entire lifetime making him wait for things to get "figured
> out." You have no respect for your elders, who have gotten
> bored over more things than you have yet learned. You should
> be spanked and made to sit in the corner until you can behave.

Bink. (The diminuative of "bunk", of course. :-))

Look. This kind of "I Have Seen the Golden Age of America, and it's Over,
Son" crap is just that. Crap.

The world, over all, is a *much* better place than it was, 100, 50, or even
10 years ago. It will continue to get better. Science kind of does that, if
you haven't noticed. If something like the state increases its control so
much that nobody feels free anymore, then eventually people will get fed up
and deal with it. Usually with technology, like cryptography, and with the
market, and I certainly count emmigration as a market function. Technology
and the market killed communism. And, frankly, I look at politics as a
trailing market indicator, cementing what the market and technology  have
already done.

So, when the political situation forgets to pay attention to market and
technological reality, you get a military solution, with an actual
revolution, like we had in this country, twice, if you count the Civil War.
Though, as I've said before, the colonists in America were already free (in
the market and technology sense) and didn't know it, and the Confederacy
wasn't free (in the same sense) and thought they were. In both cases,
reality, i.e., technology and the market, wasn't optional.


So, I think the economic and technological incompetance of the very idea of
communism, if not hierarchical vertical integration itself, is what is
causing most of what we call "revolutions" these days. And, maybe, the
collapse of those socialist, or the vertically integrated and centralized
bureaucratic, components of the American system will cause the kinds of
separatist problems seen in the other other monolithic megastates like
Russia and China as well. But, frankly, I just don't think so. There is too
much of a habit of freedom in America still, even with all the state's
attempts of social control out there -- which, I think, most people ignore,
or better, can't afford to pay attention to -- for that kind of crap to
happen. So, here in the heart of the Socialist States of America,
technology is making, or keeping, people free, and they just don't know it,
yet. Or probably care about it, for that matter.

I also think that out political leaders are just figuring that out. The NSA
only makes halfhearted attempts to control cryptography anymore, for
instance. Robert Morris asks, wryly, "How much do you trust your
government?" when asked about key escrow. The state department has gotten
out of the export control business, fobbing it off onto the Commerce
Department, who's only got the FBI to listen to. The FBI is apoplectic, but
frankly, they'll figure out that they're pissing in the wind just like NSA
and State were, hopefully before anyone gets hurt.

After the FBI, who's left, right?


> Tell that to the Athenians and hundreds if not thousands of
> groups since who have been surprised when their worlds
> collapsed. Tell that to the Austrians and Germans of the
> 1920's. Tell that to the piles of bones in Cambodia.

Hoooo... Oh, boy. Yet Another History Lesson. I'm gonna *love* this...


Well, let's see, shall we? (Monty and Jim Choate can check me here, except
that I'm not sure "American Aurora" goes back that far. Oh, well, there's
always "History Your Mother Never Told You, I guess. :-))

The Athenian government, the small minority of the population who had any
now-romantic notion of "democracy" at all (when you factor in "barbarians",
slaves, and women), had a tidy little empire, paid for with other people's
money (the Delian league). But, it only lasted a little while after the
Persian war, when the money ran out, most of it being spent on fun toys
like rebuilding the Acropolis. Then, all the other Greek city states hired
the Spartans to kick Athenian Butt after the Athenians were a little too
aggressive with a tax delinquent state, killing all the men in said state,
and sending the women and children into slavery. Is that America? Maybe,
but probably not. And, so, your point is?

The Austrian and German governments, by starting a war they couldn't win,
were made to pay war reparations they couldn't afford, which they tried to
pay for by printing money they didn't have, instead of letting their
economies alone to solve the problem by themselves. Then their economies
collapsed, and political radicals with, of course, much less economic
experience, and considerably less diplomatic experience :-), took over the
government and went to war on all their neighbors. Is that America? Maybe,
but probably not. And, so, your point is?

The Cambodians were doing just fine until a superpower conflict erupted
next door, dragging them, unfortunately, onto the side of the losing one
(Us), causing allies of the winning superpower (Them) to overthrow a
moderately stable political and social system and replace it with one
having even less of an understanding of economics, much less diplomatic
experience, than the one instituted by the people who took over Germany and
Austria 40 years before. They then, vaguely reminiscent of Germany and
Austria, proceeded to go to war on their own population, especially those
people with economic, and probably diplomatic, experience. Is that America?
Maybe :-), but probably not. And, so, your point is?

Of course, we could then turn around and look at Rome, say, which
functioned for several hundred years off and on, and, technically, didn't
go away until the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century. Or, say,
Britain, which has still been kicking around for almost a thousand years,
empire or not, but, hey, who's counting, hmmm? Anyway, are those two
America? Maybe, but probably not. And, so, my point is?

Well, lost, actually. Just like yours was. :-).


> You
> suffer from the subjectivity of youth.

I'm honored you think so. I'm almost 40 now. A veritable old fart, given
the probable mean age of this list. However, Tim (Leary, that is) *did* say
that adulthood is terminal, and I endeavor to follow that dictum, while
ignoring much of his other silliness. (Hmmm, sounds familiar...) So, maybe,
I'm just shovelling age against the tide, as it were, and should grow up.
Certainly my peers tell me so. :-)

Perhaps, however, you're projecting a bit, yourself? Naaaaw...


> The times into
> which we are headed have every promise of being the very most
> "interesting" in human history.

More apacolyptic claptrap. I have an idea. Go prove how "interesting" they
are. Tell me what happened when you get back. Don't let the door hit you on
the way out...

> I for one won't feel a bit
> compensated by your future whines that you "wuz wrong!"

That's easy to fix. Put me in your killfile. Frankly, I don't think *youz*
ever gonna be right, myself...

> If you had two brain cells to rub together you would have
> taken your lumps in Tim's first brushoff and shut up.

<pffft> *Feel* your anger Luke Skywalker...<pfft>

> He's
> got a right to his position and you haven't got shit.

One double negative, excretory or not, doesn't make a right, right? (bzzzt!
Nope, two "rights" don't make a wrong either. :-))

> What
> you will have is a place in someone's black book if it turns
> out that your characterizations of Tim's posts ever turn out
> to be fuel for the enemy's meatgrinder.

Ah. Someone hiding behind a remailer threatens someone whose address is at
the bottom of his every post... Mark away, little boy, mark away. You know
where to find me when the revolution comes, Madame LaFarge...

Of course, we know all those who talk in gloomy terms about the impending
violent revolution, um, haven't got shit, themselves. Just like the posers
who say "Lock and Load" all the time, or the Knights Who Say "Nee!". Or
something.

> Ignorance, even
> stupidity, are pardonable if not too tightly connected to
> the motor mouth. You should consider that the damage you may
> do could far exceed the value of whatever pride it is that
> impels you to continue to articulate the government's ideal
> (and fatuous) arguments in this matter.

Ah. "Fatuous." A marvellous word to use, isn't it, Mr. um, Motor Mouth? Did
you look it up for the occasion? Congratulations on your choice. You can
use it in a sentence, too. How nice.


Yup, that's me. Government Stooge. If you don't believe me, ask Tim. He's
got the pictures. And, I'm  the official Cypherpunk Apostate of the
Month... (*Tell* our double winner what he's won, Don Pardo...)


> > And, Monty, here's another fact: the world isn't going to
> > end on Thanksgiving Day, much less at the beginning of the
> > millennium.
>
> Only a complete fool would be that sure.

Prove to you the revolution *isn't* coming? Have *you* read your informal
fallacies today, Mr. Mouth? I thought not...

And, of course, only a complete fool would be "sure" that the revolution,
along with black helicopters and four part harmony, is going to happen on
Thanksgiving. Woops. It's the day *after* Thanksgiving, isn't it?

Um... Mr. Mouth? ...Know where I can get a deal on slightly
out-of-the-money futures on The American Revolution 3.0, expiration date
11/27/97? My broker in Corrolitos is not answering the phone. Maybe the
helicopters got him...


> Really, if you just stopped and thought about it a moment,
> there are only a very few regular posters to the list.

Actually, we're all tenticles of the same person. Tee hee. :-)


> All
> of them could be hauled off without making a ripple. We are
> meanwhile playing war footsie with Iraq after having spent
> the better part of five years doing Clinton's best to
> disable, demoralize, cripple, and mismanage the military.
> We're a few press conferences away from being in way over
> our heads with a left-wing android in charge. Is this your
> picture of stable times and a secure Constitution? Do you
> seriously doubt that there are people in the Administration,
> at least in the bureaucracy, who wouldn't like to be able to
> make a few gratuitous PR linkages in a national emergency
> and have an excuse to get rid of the C-P annoyance once and
> for all? Did you miss entirely the personal destruction
> wreaked on Jim Bell _without_ a national emergency? Would you
> be utterly shocked to learn some day soon that you, too, have
> ordered odd chemicals from someplace or other over the last
> few years? Hey! It could _happen_!

Right. And monkeys could fly out my butt. (Hey, it *could* happen... Prove
to me that it can't. :-))

Meanwhile your Thanksgiving turkey's getting cold, bunky. I bet you can go
away from your reinforced door for short periods without even taking your
Mossberg with you. I mean, I admire your perserverance, and all, but your
clothes are starting to stink...


> No, Grasshopper, it is just a _little_ paranoid to suggest
> that it might be a possibility. You're putting words in
> Tim's mouth again.

Actually I'm not. He's been ranting for more than 6 weeks now about how the
FBI/BATF/ETC is going to come down our chimneys, Real Soon Now, Maybe This
Thanksgiving.

I finally got sick of it. Called a spade a spade, and all that.

> You can probably assume that if Tim
> were really convinced that that were going to happen, they
> would find only an inflatable Tim sitting in front of a
> 'puter relaying email through an indirect dial link. Or
> something like that.

Pardon me while I blow eggnog out my nose. :-).

> He's just concerned. I'm concerned.
> Anyone with a brain above room temperature is concerned.
> Ugly things are in the wind.

Right. The Eeevilll One has decided that the Time To Strike is Upon Us, and
so forth. And VALIS is sending thought-rays to your brain, too, I suppose.
Don't forget to sleep with in your aluminum foil nightcap tonight.

> You are the one making such characterizations (as if any of
> us needed that). Had I the time and the interest, I would
> check what archives there are to see if you did the same
> favor for Jim Bell.

Had you the intellegence, much less the time and interest, you would notice
that I never bothered with Jim Bell much, except to put him in my killfile
after the 6th or 7th AP iteration around here. It wasn't until he got
popped for being a loon in various other arenas, and the old Alphabet Gang
decided that Crypto Made Him Do It, that I got interested in him at all,
hence my "Canarypunk in a Coalmine" post. Something you'd find in the
archives. If you had time and interest. And intellegence.

Frankly, it's beginning to look Bell's *still* a loon, and, since he's got
a cryptography connection, it makes him dangerous to anyone who uses
cryptography, whether in fact Bell is dangerous or not.


> Fuckwit!

At least I'm thinking about *something*, you, um, witless fuck.

Write *that* in your little black book, hmmm?


> Well, there's more, but your time's up. See you in the camps.

Funny farm, more like it.


> We Jurgar Din

You Making Me Laugh. I blow eggnog out my nose. Chop Chop.

(With sincere apologies to Mr. Ito: I'm sorry, but I just couldn't resist
something *that* easy. :-))



Cheers,
Bob Hettinga





-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), 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/
Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>