At 12:22 PM -0500 1/10/01, John Young wrote:
Steve at one point cited cypherpunks as a hopeless venture to overturn government with ideas of cryptoanarchy. And laughed at that. Then continued propounding the false idea that NSA is needed to protect US interests. Not a word about such interest being those of the USG.
The full story of crypto is yet to be written, in particular its deceptions, perhaps a piece by Vin McLelland, one by Declan, one by Tim May, if not by distributed cyperhpunks not quite so malleable as solo individuals given privileged access on the condition that . . .
What about that timing of CRYPTO release and the NSA show?
But, John, weren't you just a week or two ago speculating that the very _origins_ of the Cypherpunks group and list in 1992 had something dark to do with NSA covert ops? As one who was there, at all times, I can most assuredly tell you that neither Eric Hughes nor Hugh Daniel nor Arthur Abraham nor John Gilmore nor Jude Milhon had any links to the NSA or other TLAs. If you knew these folks, you would know, too. As for writing a book, this is for book writers. Remember when Brin's book came out a few years ago? I had some folks in Palo Alto pressuring me to join in on a "collective refutation" of the "bad memes" in Brin's book, with the idea of some kind of speaking tour or counter-book to follow Brin around as a kind of "truth squad." I declined to be part of such a collective effort, because: a) better things to do with my time b) I don't like committee or collective efforts c) no such truth squad would get even a fraction of the "air time" that a published author like Brin would get d) the sheeple really don't care, anyway e) Brin's book would be just another drop in the ocean, anyway. His vision of the future is unlikely in the extreme (t.v. cameras in police offices...sure, whatever), so refuting his "bad memes" is just a waste of time As it happens, I never heard a peep out of this group. Maybe they dropped the idea. Maybe they got no one to sign up for the Anti-Brin Brigade. Maybe they got no press coverage. Who cares, anyway? As for Levy's new book, I've only read parts of it. My copy from Amazon hasn't arrived, so I only checked out a few pages in the local bookstore. What I saw looked accurate. As for his views toward "crypto anarchy," what else would one expect? If the future many of us think is likely is in fact _actually_ likely, then what does it matter whether Levy makes dismissive comments on his book tour or not? I didn't find him making dismissive comments in his book, which is what will be read, anyway. (And even if he did, see previous point...) Look, it was fairly clear to me back in 1987-88 what was going to happen. I have all of my notes from that period, as well as some published essays. Without going into details here, many of the things I thought would clearly happen have _already_ happened. (And, by the way, I made a lot of money by investing in companies based on my expectations.) I've already written a _ton_ of stuff on these matters. Some essays collected into books by others. (Maybe even the new Vinge book, though the editor has been incommunicado with me for three or four years, so I don't even know if my piece will be in the long-delayed re-issue of "True Names.") So count me out on some effort to Write Yet Another Refutation (of a book that doesn't, in my view, need refuting). Others are welcome to. I hear Gary Jeffers is still kicking around, eager to be asked to write such a book. Jim Choate would probably like to be a part of it, too. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns