FCC Licensed Cypherpunks

17 Dec 2003

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As someone pointed out recently, there's a lot of similarity between
the as-yet-unregulated Internet and the pre-FCC airwaves.  There were
even cypherpunk-analogs back then, who called themselves amateur radio
operators.  Where are they now?

Corralled into tiny slices of FCC-approved bandwidth.  Granted titles
of nobility by the government in recognition of their Morse code
prowess.  Eager to report pirate operators who don't play by the
rules, at least back when the FCC still investigated such complaints.

There lies the future: all those newbies wandering in with their
"Unbrakable Random Number Generator Encription Systemz" are going to
come back as Master Class Amateur Cryptography Operators, and by God
you'd better not laugh at their Internet Key Recovery Authority
certificates, if you know what's good for you.

Have a nice day.

- --Thumbnail

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