(Note: my original message was posted to Cypherpunks, which I consider to be substantially different than DBS: had I been posting to DBS, I would have included different details...list differentiation is kin of useful, it's why the different lists were created in the first place)
At 3:38 PM -0400 on 9/7/98, Robert Hettinga wrote about Ryan Lackey's whereabouts, on cypherpunks:
If I told you, I would have to kill you?
I never said this. If you'd like to fabricate/summarize/editorialize, please make it clear that that's what you're doing, by using the traditionally accepted editorial convention of square brackets, or some other convention. I prefer Chicago Manual of Style, but I'm sure the AP Stylebook is acceptable.
Whew. Glad Ryan has now said something publically now about his and Ian's bit of extraterritorial subtrifuge (though Ian doesn't qualify, of course). I mean, I just *hate* keeping secrets... ;-).
Ian Goldberg isn't involved -- he's working on Zero Knowledge Systems, AFAIK, and I wish him luck, but I haven't really spoken to him in months. He's a Canadian, anyway. I haven't mentioned working with anyone else anywhere, other than that I'm working for "interesting" clients. If you know otherwise, it isn't particularly public knowledge at this point.
Frankly, I *really* have a hard time with all this man-without-a-first-world-country, crypto-expat stuff. I think making the technology not eonomically optional is the way to change things, and no amount of romantic, jurisdiction-shopping "regulatory arbitrage" is going to alter reality all that much.
I'm not breaking US law. I'm a US citizen. I pay my taxes, respect US law, etc. It's just that I'm choosing to work on something somewhere other than the US, for a variety of reasons.
And, I wish Vince -- and now, apparently, Ryan -- good luck, whatever happens.
Vince formally renounced his citizenship, becoming a citizen of a small african country, and intends to remain in Anguilla. I left the US for a while to work on stuff, and to get away from a major US city for a while. I think there's a huge difference here. What I have done is fundamentally no different than going to Montana to write code for a while, other than that it was cheaper and more convenient for me to come to Anguilla. (Of course, Vince seems to be doing quite well...) I just happen to not want to go back to the US right now, it's not that I can't if I decide I want to at some point. Thanks, Ryan (who generally does not provide confidential information to people who do not like keeping secrets, out of kindness for them)