Title: The True Story of the Internet Part II The True Story of the InterNet Part III InfoWar Final Frontier of the Digital Revolution Behind the ElectroMagnetic Curtain by TruthMonger <tm@dev.null> Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing InfoWar Table of Contents McCrackin (MI9) McCrackin (MI9) 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. Final Frontier of the Digital Revolution 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 <camcc@abraxis.com> "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" "WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs" "InfoWar (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet')