Re: Cypherpunks as Philosopher Kings

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

My closing line of this post is "When Cypherpunks are viewed as
"terrorists," we will have done our jobs." So, if this viewpoint offends
you, delete this message now. If you don't understand the context of this
point, you may be a newbie, or a "warez dood," and should probably delete
this message and go back to asking for some new kewl viruses (perhaps on
another, more suitable, forum). If you understand the context, but agree or
disagree, then of course we can discuss it.

At 4:36 PM +0000 12/18/96, attila@primenet.com wrote:

>        Currently, I am not sure what the charter of cypherpunks
>    really stands for, if anything.  As it stands, the list has
>    a far more erudite group than the list it probably should be.
>    certainly more privacy and social engineering issues resulting
>    from the deprivation of privacy than code.

The "charter" is mostly contained in the "welcome message" all subscribers
receive. And further elaborations, as Attila of course knows (but maybe
some others don't) are fleshed out in the essays we write, the material
formerly at the csua/cypherpunks ftp site (I'm not sure it's still there,
as it's been a long time since I looked), etc,

I agree that "programming" per se was never the focus. Even in the early
days, when the remailers were written by E. Hughes and H. Finney, there was
essentially zero discussion of the details of the Perl and/or C
code...which is not surprising, as the number of people conversant in
Perl--and interested at the time the discussion happens--is usally a small
number. Maybe 5 people on the list back then could've meaningfully spent
time looking at the Perl code and discussing it. As I said, this is hardly
surprising.

Instead, a wider audience is reached by--and participates in--debates about
the overall structure of remailers, the role of latency/accumulation, and
so on. (I'm just picking remailers as an example.)

Is this "coding"? In a sense, of course it is. And the design criteria
overlap with politico-legal discussions, e.g., of the need for
extra-jurisdictional remailers, the need for large numbers of them, the
advisability of various types of remailer syntax, etc.

Keeping with this particular example, not that the remailer operators have
their own mailing list to discuss details of current remailer software,
issues of blocking, etc.

Add to this list other such lists, such as "pgp-dev" and the various crypto
lists, and sci.crypt, and sci.crypt.research, and "coderpunks," and this is
why I have very little sympathy when people chime in saying discussion of
digital cash and crypto anarchy have "no place" on this list (Cypherpunks),
that the list is "for coding." Nonsense.

(Oh, and there's now Perry's new list. And filtered lists. And on and on.)

What's making the list almost unreadable for me today are the noisy posts
from newcomers ("doodz, like here are some warez!"), spammers ("make money
fast"), insulters ("John Gilmore (fart) is a Sovok apparatchnik"), and
unsubscribers {who can't spell and who never seem to read the instructions
sent to them).

>        I don't believe Cypherpunks was ever intended to be a technical
>    forum; I was not on for the first few months so I missed the
>    formative discussions of the elitist few, most of whom, other than
>    founder tcmay, have left for greener pastures.

Well, if the early list activists were Eric Hughes, Hugh Daniel, John
Gilmore, and me, only Eric and I were heavy posters in the first months and
years. John and Hugh were always low-volume, off doing other things, or not
primarily interested in the debate on the mailing list. So, only Eric has
moved off to other things.

But so have a lot of folks....look at the active posters from the first
year. Then the second year. And the third. And the fourth. Lots of changes
in names. As expected. People say what they want to say, and hear the same
points a bunch of times. And lots of list members have gotten
crypto-related jobs...the list is very long. (I'm not claiming that they
got the jobs because of our list, but it is interesting the extent to which
list members have found work in crypto and security areas.)

>        For what it's worth, the above is my perception of cypherpunks:
>    an interesting collection of philosopher kings, some of whom are
>    putting their convictions to the means of thwarting the common
>    enemy.  It is no accident most subscribers, and certainly all the
>    doers, are anti-government with a preference for social anarchy,
>    the anarchy tempered by some level of realization that the mass
>    of humanity can not govern itself in a society which is inherently
>    evil. However, if the Libertarian Party can not field a better
>    candidate than Harry Brown, anarchy, or a premature dictatorship,
>    it will be.  The US is in the last laugh of the oligarchy at this
>    point in time.

Being that I think _democracy_ is our number one problem, I'm not at all
surprised that the Libertarian Party is foundering (and floundering, too
:-}). Harry Browne, the best candidate ever (and I voted for the first LP
candidate, John Hospers, in 1972--yes, 1972), got less of the vote this
time around than the past several (weaker) candidates. Oh well. Not
suprising.

_Direct action_ is what it's all about. Undermining the state through the
spread of espionage networks, through undermining faith in the tax system,
through even more direct applications of the right tools at the right times.

When Cypherpunks are called "terrorists," we will have done our jobs.

--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
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."