DD+I have a flawless philosophic/scientific model of reality. +Unfortunately, it's actual size. So far you're doin' fine. DD+>Cypherpunks write code, and design protocols, and analyze ciphers, and +>assess risks, and write articles, and attend conferences, and lobby +>Congress, and in general look at the world with a critical eye. Actually real punks hack whole systems, so we go out and run Congress, (me) or Japanese science (my ex-wife) or the CIA and State Department in Africa (the woman I am about to marry). Everything you say about writing code, designing protocols, analysing ciphers and assessing risks (also writing articles and attending conferences) is pretty much correct. It also helps to sleep with the right women at times, a point which seems to escape the essentially male computer-freek culture. Good table manners and a certain amount of familiarity with other languages help; my next wife, for instance, is only mine because I can say "ayin l'gazal", eyes like a gazelle's, something I must have picked up while sussing out your local bunch of AK-47 carrying terorists -- or half-starved recent Canadian immigrants, whichever story you care to believe. I have to leave now: I am about to be visited by my neighborhood sociopath, a guy who works for Steve Wynn and all those folksin Las Vegas. He has a new and interesting story to tell me. I've heard it all before. But it's going to be interesting to hear the latest version. -dlj. david.lloyd-jones@canrem.com * 1st 1.11 #3818 * Who won't do the arithmetic will live by stupid policies.