FEB 17 CYPHERPUNKS TRANSCRIPT Copyright (C) 1994, cypherpunks@toad.com All Rights Reserved.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I wonder how the courts will interpret that ;)
This will certainly put a nice toad up the NSA's ass. Anyone reading this will see that the cypherpunks are a bunch of folk that stick together as a single entity whose purpose right now is to kill clipper.
That wasn't the topic of the discussion in question, actually. It was largely just a discussion on cryptography in general and its implications, slanted towards anarchists, who were the audiance being addressed. Most of the population is extremely hostile to anarchism, so from a PR point of view that talk isn't what you want. Also, it unfairly makes it look like "cypherpunk" means "anarchist". Now, it happpens that I am an anarchist, but that isn't what most people associated with the term "cypherpunk" believe in, and it isn't fair to paint them that way -- hell, many people on this mailing list are overtly hostile to anarchism.
I agree. However, I was severely pressed for time, and this was the best resource I could find that dealt with most of the issues dealing with Clipper. I don't think it made anarchist==cypherpunk, though granted some folks would take it that way. Certainly a cypherpunk is nothing more than somone who uses crypto for his privacy and demands strong crypto. However the transcript did offer a lot of information as to what the uses are both legal and illegal and what the dangers of weak crypto & clipper. I did ask around for beginners articles & was told to write some up myself. I would have, had I not been pressed for time. As I said in the pc-expo summary, I had to write lots of software, and weed though about 900 files that I captured off this list to see what I can use. None of them had as much raw info as this file. In the heading to this file, I did write "Please forgive the political slant of this file and instead look at the info it provides" or something like it. While that won't really make much different for those who'd say "Damn anarchists," it made me feel better. :-)
I don't want people to think you have to hate the idea of government in order to like cryptography.
This wasn't my original intention, but unless someone (even myself) writes a nice big text file on all the issues from clipper, to rsa, to patents to pgp to even Tempest and IR face scans at the airport, this was the best resource I could find. Even Tim wasn't able to help out. I had little choice. IT was either include this file and offend some readers, or don't include it and leave them clueless. Which would you rather had me do? Now keep in mind that about 30% of the disk receivers will never see any articles because of my big mistake in the installation script, and the rest will figure out how to get it, or won't be interested so they won't see it...
The copyright is also meaningless because a non-person (human or corporate) cannot copyright something. Certainly an email address can't hold a copyright. In any case I consider it a little odd that I would not under your copyright be permitted to sell someone a copy of my own words.
You obviously can sell someone a copy of it. You wrote it, it's under your copyright more than the cypherpunks. You have to keep in mind that the visuals of this disk were to make it look like some big corporation was putting out demo software. Not a bunch of loosely connected folks who know each other only via email (mostly anyway.) Putting a copyright notice on it certainly brings this out more. Also the title of the disk wasn't "Cypherpunks Disks" it was "Data Security & Privacy\n A Free Software Demo" In small letters it stated that PGP & SecureDevice & WNS were on the disk. I also put "For demo/educational uses only" and "NOT FOR EXPORT" All this lends itself to look professional rather than freewareish. I'll send ya a copy of the disk if you like; you'll see that the installer program is also of the "professional" look & feel. Or at least as much as I could make it look professional in the short time that I had.
Lastly, I don't know what was on that disk exactly, but I've started getting calls from random kooks about it. I find that a bit disturbing. Did you leave my phone number on it or something?
Nope. Not unless you're in the phone book. The random cooks could be press folks as I did give out quite a few copies to them. So try & find out if they are or not. If anything, you can tell'em I did the disk and give'em my work number (212-412-8475) and I'll deal with them. The only thing referring to you was your name. I don't think I even included your email address... I did include "for more info, send email to cypherpunks@ toad.com" and told them how to subscribe and to expect tons of email if they do. I didn't even put my address on it. My name is only on the copyright notices of the installer, menu, and file viewer programs. I didn't put my email address\, nor phone number, nor anything else except my name on the disk. As far as copyright is concerned, while we are just a "mailing list" we can also be thought as an organization. We are "organized" and our address is only on the internet. The method of organization is anarchy. None the less we aren't any less of an organization than any other. We just don't operate in the same way IBM or MicroSoft, or EFF or EPIC does. Does that mean we can't copyright stuff in the cypherpunks name? I don't know, I'm not a lawyer and I agree with you that it probably wouldn't hold true infront of a copyright judge or a copyright lawyer. None the less, it was put there for effect and it did its job for effect, not for copyright. If you want to sell the disk, you can't, except for the cost of duplicating the disk. ie: user groups, etc. If you want to sell your speech, you can. It's yours and nobody claims any copyright owenership to it. If Dave Mandl wants to sell it, he too can. :-) Now I wouldn't be able to sell it and I haven't, and neither can any cypherpunk on this list. Again the disk itself is copyrighted as a collection. I didn't claim that cypherpunks had ownership of PGP, WinPGP, WNSTORM, SecureDevice, or the articles. Infact a lot of the Wired articles were on it (with their own copyright notices of course.) If the Libertarians want to "Sell" copies of the transcript I guess they could if it were okay with you and Dave. (For those of you unfamiliar with a collection copyright, it's basically a copyright on a collection of things that are either copyrighted or public domain (if they're copyrighted, they can still be distributed, but that strongly depends on the real owner of the copyright.) If someone else takes the same collection of files and sells it, he is violating the collection copyright.) Now all this aside, I doubt that I'd actually go and sue PC Magazine for selling the disks at $100 a pop. Of course the guy getting his hands on the disk might notice he was had, but that's another thing.