NOTE: The schedule has changed a bit because we recently learned that the music at the Great American Music Hall can't go past 1:15. == Celebrate with us as we celebrate the end of an era The Big RSA Patent Expiration Party A fundraiser for the Cryptorights Foundation (http://www.cryptorights.org/) produced by The Cryptorights Foundation (http://www.cryptorights.org/) musical production by BPM Consulting International (http://www.bpm.ai/) with special thanks to our Gold Sponsor Certicom (http://www.certicom.com/) also sponsored by VA Linux (http://www.valinux.com/) PAIP International (http://www.paip.net/) vital production help from Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/) The Shmoo Group (http://www.shmoo.com/) The Secret Order of Former Primes (http://www.krev.org/mos/sofp/) The Cypherpunks (http://www.cryptorights.org/meetingpunks/) webcast by Technostate Underground Communications (http://www.technostate.com/) Virtual Recordings (http://www.virtualrecordings.com/) sound by Cloudfactory (http://www.cloudfactory.org/) The Great American Music Hall (http://www.musichallsf.com/) 859 O'Farrell St. (between Polk & Larkin) 21+ Directions: http://www.musichallsf.com/info/directions/ On the evening after the expiration of the patent 21 September, 2000: 8PM-1:30AM By invitation only. In order to receive your invitation, send an email with the # of people who plan to attend to <mailto:rsa-patent-benefit@cryptorights.org> Entrance is free, but the Cryptorights Foundation will be accepting donations at the door. The evening begins promptly at 8PM with speakers from the cryptography and human rights fields. The Great American Music Hall's kitchen will be open until 10:30, so show up early, have dinner, and listen to some fine speeches. Speakers for the evening will include: Mistress of Ceremonies: Cindy Cohn -- Legal Director, EFF Master of Ceremonies: John Gilmore -- Founder, EFF Dave Del Torto: Founder, CRF Cindy Cohn: Legal Director, EFF Ian Goldberg: Head Cypherpunk, Zero Knowledge Systems Matt Blaze: AT&T Research John Gilmore: Electronic Frontier Foundation CRF Steel Rose Awards Presented by Dave Del Torto CRF Lifetime Acheivement Award Presentation Keynote/Last Word: David Chaum Finally, at 9:30PM, the beats will drop and your evening will end with the slamming techno sounds of the San Francisco underground! Featuring DJs Sameer (FnF, Cloudfactory, Urban Wasteland, Mad Hatter, trustcrew) Sameer has been active in the San Francisco underground throwing parties since 1993. In 1999 with some of the crew he met through Friends & Family he started throwing the legendary Urban Wasteland parties in urban renegade locations in and around the East Bay. He also picked up his first slab of wax in early 1999 and has been playing sick pounding techno at parties around the world since then. He is also involved in producing a weekly club in Oakland called the Mad Hatter. Sameer is also known as the founder of C2Net, the company that pioneered the international development of strong cryptography to avoid United States export restrictions. DJ Tektrix (Sister, Tetractys, Influence Recordings) Cary, a/k/a DJ Tektrix, moved to San Francisco in 1997. Since then Tektrix has played alongside DJs such as Forest Green, Twerk, Terrac, Plateshifter, Mike Sims, Darin Marshall, Sean Murray, J-Bird, Tom L-G, 2x4 with DJ Zeel, Sifu, HoneyB, and Ethan. In 1999 she threw a party called Circle that took place at the Mother's Cookies Warehouse, conducted weekly live internet and pirate radio broadcasts on Vulcan Free Radio, and this year became a resident at Tetractys and Sister. She has played at parties such as Static, Circle, Overworld, and Topica. Forest Green (Cloudfactory, Sister, XLR8R, technologix, FnF) Forest Green has been throwing down beats with the sickness for several years. She has traveled both across the nation and into Canada to bring the sick Techno sound to those in need. you might also know her as one of the starring DJs from the hit underground movie Groove! also featuring tracks produced by the EFF's very own: Patrick Norager (Virtual Recordings, RadioEFF) Patrick is the Station Manager at Radio EFF, and a musical recording artist in his own right. Patrick has produced some phat tracks especially for this event, including phat rhythm tracks under audio samples of famed investigative journalist Duncan Campbell talking to a Cypherpunks meeting last year about his work on revealing the existence of ECHELON. Be sure to listen for them during the music portion of the evening. == Event Features Food & Drinks: The Bar (this is a 21+ event) and Kitchen at the GAMH will be open for your patronage, and there will be tables and chairs available on the main floor and the balcony for anyone wishing to dine or drink (please designate a driver!). There will be pretzels/nuts/etc for those just wishing to nibble. Note that the GAMH has been very supportive of this benefit, and have offered us a small refund of some of the event fees if the bar and kitchen meet a minimum, so eating and drinking are yet another way for you to benefit the CRF. Enjoy! Sponsors: Our corporate sponsors will have some materials for attendees and there may be some job recruiters, so if you need a job, bring a resume and/or card. CryptoRights Memberships: Please sign up to be a CRF member at our membership table! For a mere $20, you get a one-year CRF membership and a cool t-shirt! Such a deal! Backrubs: Lile Elam of Art.net will be setting up a place for people to give each other backrubs. RSA employees get preferential treatment! == "The Party Line" A few comments from the CryptoRights Foundation on why we're having this event... The last of the Big Crypto Patents --the RSA algorithm-- will officially expire and enter the Public Domain on 20 September 2000 (at midnight local time), two decades after its original discovery and after 17 years of fun with royalties. Over the years, RSA Security Inc often made the algorithm free for use by academics and non-profits, so it's fair to say that most of the patent's impact over the years has been in the commercial sector, but that has had an impact on public domain open source freeware since many freeware crypto products are funded by commercial development. On the other hand, as Whit Diffie and I both argued at a recent BayFF meeting, the RSA patent may even have pushed people to form groups like the Cypherpunks, the EFF and the CRF (a good thing for everyone), as well as freeware products like PGP (via MIT). Nevertheless, once it's entirely public property again, everyone in the US will soon be able to use the RSA algorithm as freely as others have been able to around the world for years. Whether you consider this passing to be as symbolic as a press release, or a major milestone for the crypto community, it could lead to brilliant new work by US security professionals. Free to implement the raw mathematical algorithm in the open so that their work is fully trustable, rather than using a proprietary library designed by others, we should see new capabilities brought forth soon that can benefit non-commercial users. Many have been talking for some time about having a party to mark the end of this era. Some of us also feel it's also time to look to the future, and to discuss what we'll do over the next 20 years to let bygones be bygones and focus on putting crypto to use in the pursuit of loftier goals. We're not about complaining about the past, we're about working on the future, and we know that everyone will need secure, authenticated communications and data storage if the world is to move closer to universal representative government. The CryptoRights Foundation was founded on a few important principles. One principle we believe in is that human rights workers should have access to the strongest security tools as they enter dangerous areas to document Crimes against Humanity. We also believe that security researchers should have the Freedom to openly research and develop security algorithms and tools without interference from external organizations. Finally, we believe that both groups should cooperate as much as possible to protect each others' freedoms. This is why we thought the RSA patent expiration would be an ideal opportunity to grow support for some of our current projects and to get our message across. By bringing together all of the different groups who were planning to have a party anyway, we can discuss common visions. We hope you'll come and join all of the wonderful people and organizations and generous sponsors who plan to celebrate the next twenty years of working together! --Dave Del Torto founder, CryptoRights Some Interesting URLs: http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn10=US04405829 (the RSA patent) http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/faq/6-3-1.html (RSA's FAQ on the patent expiration) http://www.rsasecurity.com/news/pr/000906-1.html (RSA's recent Press Release on the patent) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Very Special Thanks! Lots of nice people contributed their efforts to this event, and we'd like to thank a few of them here (if we left you out, please accept our apologies!): Tim Dierks, Jessica Watt & the human beings at Certicom -- Chris DiBona, Rick Moen, Joseph Z & the human beings at VA Linux -- Ian Goldberg of PAIP International -- Sameer Parekh of CryptoRights and BPM International -- John Gilmore, Cindy Cohn, Patrick Norager, Deborah Pierce, Katina Bishop & Stanton McCandlish at the EFF -- Paul Holman, Kristen Tsolis & the Shmoo Group -- Rodney Thayer at KnownSafe, Inc -- Len Sassaman at MelonTraffickers and Phil Zimmermann for the new/improved Group Keysigning Protocol -- Bill Stewart, the Meetingpunks Planners & the dozens of Cypherpunks for their many good works over the years -- Randi M Chiffre & Alan J Lansing of the Secret Order of Former Primes -- Gwen Hastings for the many person-hours of time and talent on CRF technical projects -- Robert Guerra of CryptoRights Canada for so many things we can't even list them here -- David Chaum for keynoting and bringing a secret to reveal -- Patrick Ball at AAAS for inspiration and years of hard work in the trenches all around the world -- and last but certainly not least, Tony Caparelli, Andrea Crittenden & the whole GAMH Crew for having us into their house.