At 3:37 PM -0500 2/19/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:
We also have to thank Tim May for his um, ideological, presence on this list from since before it existed, :-), and, or course, for his current "leadership", both moral and political. (Of course, I can say all the next few wierd and gushy things about him without fear of refutation on his part, 'cause, in his wisdom, I'm still in his killfile ;-)) It was Tim who
No, Bob, I actually took you out of my filter file (Eudora's killfile) a while back. It is true that I don't like your style, your writing style, that is. Some say I am overly sensitive to style issues...probably so. I find most modern cyber-journalism unreadable, with the hipper-than-thou "street cred" lingo and the obfuscatory purple prose. I find reading the straight-shooting words of even my ideological opponents (or opponents in some areas) far easier than reading the neo-journalistic hype some of my ideological fellow-travellers use. Nothing personal.
was our compass. It was Tim who came down from the mountain and stopped us from worshiping the fatted calf of censorship, and who is now leading us into the promised land of unfettered discourse, both on usenet and on the new cypherpunk server network. Since Tim paper-trained most of us here (myself included, though some may debate how well he succeeded :-)), that is, how to behave on this list, and, most important, how to imagine what a world of strong crytography on ubiquitous networks would look like, I now find his "leading" us out onto the net, and away from Sinai, most symmetrical indeed. :-).
Well, I guess I have to say "Indeed." (Though I don't claim to be leading anyone, especially not off the list. After several weeks of saying nothing, I outlined my reasons for disliking the censorship move...reasons that had also been made by many other folks. Anyway, Adam Back's summary of events is pretty close to the mark.) The vision of where the world is headed, noted by Bob, has been clear to many of us for many years. When I first read about public key systems, circa 1977, I got an inkling. When I read Chaum's paper on untraceable digital cash, circa 1986, things got clearer. And when I evaluated the business plan of Phil Salin for his company, American Information Exchange, in 1987, everything fell into place. My role with him was to suggest how cryptographic protocols, including digital cash, would open up information markets. His company eventually got some funding, but failed. This company was several years too early, as it presaged many aspects of the Web (and, not coincidentally, its "sister company" was Xanadu, which even more clearly presaged the Web--indeed, Ted Nelson was the godfather of the Web. Anyway, by mid-1988, I wrote and distributed "the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto," which, to my surprise and satisfaction, basically anticipated all of the things now being done on Cypherpunks and elsewhere (anonymous remailers, message pools, steganography, BlackNet types of markets, ubiquitous crypto, etc.). The missing piece, digital cash, is a hard nut to crack...sure, it exists (Mark Twain Bank, DigiCash, etc.), but it's hard to get robust versions deployed and used. (Getting PGP integrated into mailers is stil bogged down, for reasons I have to believe have to do with pressures from somewhere, else why would e-mail packages not make PGP support painless?) I agree with Bob and others that the Cypherpunks are in no danger of dying out. Things are just about to get a lot more interesting. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."