BUT< I had spent all Sunday from 12:30PM to 1:00am (yes, that is twelve and a half hours,) writing the software, and from 4:30am on Monday to about 1:00pm putting the script and selecting the
i PC EXPO Perhaps one of the great lessons to be learned from this is that you should not rely on others to always be there to help you in your endeavors, even if they are cypherpunks and have already volunteered. Out of all the cypherpunk folks who have "volunteered," to help out at PC Expo precisely zero came through. Like having assholes, everyone also had an excuse. Still this was my idea and as such I refuse to give it up without trying. In light of this blatant rats-fleeing-the-ship syndrome, a great load of kudos goes to my friend Sal, who although not a cypherpunk, and although short on time, and although he is the CIO of his company, and although I did not run into him at the pre- arranged place, did show up and did distribute diskettes as promissed. I would strongly suggest that you send him "Thank you" notes as he is not on the cypherpunks list, but helped enourmosly. His address is denaro09@darwin.poly.edu. Also much thanks to Tung Ming Wong whose email address I don't have. He also helped out even though he knew nothing about Clipper, Digital Telephony, the NSA, or the Cypherpunks. Now as with all disasters, the blame is partially my own. I should have kept a whip on you guys and made sure you'd come. :-) But I am at a greater fault (more on this later.) Now before you accuse me of being lazy, let me remind you that I have taken a great deal of time out of my schedule to even go to PC Expo. Luckily my boss wasn't able to say "no" because he was too busy in meetings the day before, and even if he did say "No" I'd rather give up my job than give up my principles. As a result of my endeavors, I hope that I have at least set forth an example for the rest of you, and that you will do well to sacrifice some time and money on disks and distribution at Comdex, Software Developer's Expo, or whatever expo. And make copies out to others as well. With the exception of Sal, Tung, Greg Broiles (sent 25 disks for this project!), Dave Mandl, Perry Metzger, and Susan Fullar, I am pretty disappointed in you guys. Dave and Perry weren't directly involved in this project, but their Feb 17 speech which I taped and had Sue transcribe (not a cypherpunk) was the centerpiece of the articles. (I want to add an extra load of thanx to Perry for not showing up to do a speech for my crypto class as since he didn't I had to get over my crowd-shyness and did a killer, informative speech.) I did the hard work for you already. I've set the precedent, I've built the disk, I've written the software. Yes, I wrote software, even while pressed for time, I wrote a professional looking installer program, a file lister program, and a menu program, all of which are mousable, and have windows, buttons, menus, and all the other neat features of modern software. The disk looks and feels fairly professional. With the correct style of label the disk looks like its a free demo from some company, when in actuality it is free software. Now if it sounds like I'm congradulating myself and patting my own shoulders, it's because I am! Also, all of the above software is "freeware" and as such is copyable. So if you'd like to get your greedy little hands on it, and use it to make a fortune, feel free. There are no restrictions on use other than that you send me free copies of any package you include my 'wares in. Although on the surface this may indicate a "failure" it was actually a far greater blessing in disguise. I didn't need much help, and it turned out I didn't have to do much work. I still believe that between Sal and myself, we made a little, albeit important grass-roots dent in Clipper's armor (not that it wasn't already dented and as well built and solid as swiss cheese.) I was supposed to meet Sal infront a diner near PC Expo at 9:00am. Borland's Marketting engine decided to give me a call and make an offer I couldn't refuse. The woman wouldn't get off the phone even after I told her, "Yes, put it on my Visa Card, I gotta run!" So I wound up at the meeting place at 10:14AM, with Sal already departed. Luckily, as I got out of the subway station I ran into an old buddy of mine, Tung. He tagged along the whole day and helped out quite a bit. I gave him some diskettes to take home, and gave some out to a few of his friends we ran into. Not a biggie there. However as I was in line waiting to get my badge holder, I noticed an arrow pointing up to the fourth level with the words "Press Resource Office" imprinted! What luck! I dragged Tung with me and started hounding the press. I gave out about ten or so disks to the press dudes. It seems that I did well to pick male press folk as when I approached a femme reporter with disk in hand, she loudly yelped "No, no!" as if I was carrying a bomb.... But all the other reporters took it in with great interest. I caught the eye of Ephraim Schwartz, and he gave me his card so now I have a press contact for cypherpunk info. After deciding that I had depleted a fifth of my diskette supply on the media, and well knowing that the media did plenty of Clipper stories I decided to hand some out to the exhibitors. I hit MacAffe and a couple of other companies... anything with "security" on their products list. Then, the biggest most fortuitus slop of luck decided to land on top of me. WIRED was there. And to my joy, the just dumped about a thousand or so magazines on a table, and didn't have anyone watching it. Just freebies for all to take. Sniffing out the territory, I spread about five diskettes on the table next to the magazines and retreated while keeping an eye out. Within two seconds they were all consumed! What luck! I came back about two or three times, and by the time I had realized it, all my PC Expo cypherpunk diskettes were gone. Wired turned out to be a good target because those familiar with WIRED, even in passing are far more of the type to be interested in crypto software than the average Joes. Let this be a good lesson for the future my droogs! When the next Expo arrives, be it PC Expo, Unix Expo, or whatever, pick an empty table, or a table which isn't being watched too closely and deposit your eggs there. The cookoo's egg deposit method worked VERY well for me. Even if the Wired table had been watched, the disks I placed there vanished so quickly, it would be unlikely that the "watcher" would catch on fast enough to stop the majority of the disks from being distributed. And if he "confiscated" them, he'd be likely to have a look for himself anyway, which is the point! But mind you, don't get caught. If you do, you might get kicked out of the Expo, but even so, in that case you hit the folks entering and leaving the Expo and give them disks directly. We can't be stopped. Clipper WILL BE STOPPED. Having finished my job I enjoyed the rest of the day. Meanwhile Sal, (good thing I didn't run into him or we'd probably not have hit as diverse a crowed as we did) hit the fourth level near where the press people were. He didn't have it in mind to give out disks to the press. Good thing as I had done that already. Instead he gave out disks to all sorts of PC USER GROUPS! Most of which promissed to distribute/carry the disk as part of their catalog!!!!! One of the groups he targeted was cyberqueers and he rightfully did so. Being straight didn't stop him from realizing that this group would be very likely to value their privacy. He also handed out some diskettes to the exhibitors. Between the two of us, we threw out about 80-90 diskettes. With the press, this number would remain the same, but the added noise will help a bit. With the users group, this number of diskettes will likely reach the thousands within six months, a few hundred within a month. With the users which picked up the freebies from the Wired table, they will probably give out some copies. I'd guess on the average that half of them would make copies for their friends (using software piracy as a model. here, though this of course is freely copyable.) I unfortunatly found out (here comes the blame part!) that the installation script I had written had a typo in it. Now this is no ordinary typo mind you, but a severe and fairly fatal one. The installer script that I have given out won't install any of the articles! Ugh! I wish I caught it before the fact, articles for the disk. Now mind you I do have a full time job and I did risk being fired for coming in four hours late, and taking off a whole day for PC Expo! So before you start with the flames, fuck off right now as you did almost nothing to help. For those who don't notice the missing articles, they weren't interested anyway. For those who do, I hope some of them are technically oriented enough, or know someone who is technically oriented enough to type in: C: CD CRYPTO MD ARTICLES A:ARTICLES Which will run the self extracting LHA articles archive. For those who have email availble to them, can email either me, or Sal, or the list and I will tell'em how to get at the articles. Unfortunatly most of the punch of the disk was in the articles... But no use crying over what's done... I'll just make sure that I'll be ready next year. Anyone who wants a copy of this disk should let me know and I'll send'em a disk image (made using the DIM Disk IMage archiver program which I've also written.) Guys, please get out there and start making a difference. Being keyboard cryptographers and keyboard politicians won't help our cause at all! I've lost about twenty hours of sleep overall on this project, a day and a halffrom work, the price of printing labels, cost of diskettes, etc. A small sacrifice, and a really big effect in the long run. So come on, join in.