Sitting at home this morning I decided to turn the TV to the Jerry Springer show, assuming that, since his network was trying to promote him as a News person, his show would no doubt be dealing with a serious issue such as the future of the InterNet, encryption, censorship, etc. Instead, the show turned out to be titled, "I Cut Off My Manhood." It was a delightfully artful mosaic about a guy who cut off his penis with gardening shears, the queer stalker who had killed the penisless guy's cat by throwing a recliner across the room, the stalker's lesbian friend and two fairly average relatives of the self-mutilater who apparently were there to confirm for us that cutting off one's penis with a pair of gardening shears is a bit over the edge, to say the best. Although I was disappointed in that encryption issues were not being addressed on the show, I did get somewhat enlightened as to what we can do to help spread strong encryption. The Jerry Springer audience got to see pictures of the mutilated penis (I assume in close-up color glossies) while those of us at home had to be content to watch the audience members groan and try not to throw up. I immediately realized that if the show had been on WebTV and pictures of the mutilated penis were available to home viewers in encrypted form, that "Applied Cryptography" would soon be on the Best Seller lists around the nation. Thinking about crypto issues from the standpoint of female body parts, I realized that GAK and Key Recovery are likely to become a part of our everyday reality because Silicon Valley Crypto has the same allure as Silicon Breasts. We live in a bottle-fed society that has learned from infancy to accept substitutes for the real thing. From topless bars to the beach, we are willing to settle for the illusion that matches the advertised product our minds have been sold, rather than accept the forms that exist in reality and take the time and effort to find ones that truly suit our needs and desires. Is a society that eats food that sometimes has less nutritional value than the package it comes in, are the masses going to demand "the real thing" in a crypto product, or will they settle for a watered down product which "meets government standards" and comes in a pretty box? The masses don't have the time or expertise to test the nutritional value of their food or the security of their crypto. They depend on the government, corporations and the press to provide them with the products and information to make a rational choice as to what truly meets their needs. The government's main interest is power over the citizens; the corporation's main interest is profiting from the citizens; the press' main interest is pandering to government and corporations enough to be kept from getting cut "out of the loop" of money and power. The only hope the masses have of getting anything resembling a square deal in regard to the products and information they are fed is for there to be enough individuals within the government, corporations and the press who are willing to resist the mindless, self-perpetuating evolution of these non-human entities, and make an effort to provide products and information which have real value based on the goals which they are designed and advertised to meet. There was a discussion on the list as to whether the cypherpunks who have "gone corporate" are a blessing or a curse to the spread of strong crypto. I think that the answer lies in the individual and in the final product of their efforts. Perhaps crypto needs Colonel Tom Parker to promote it, with Barnum and Baily bringing the Silicon Rockettes to town to give away pictures of of a mutilated penis which can only be viewed using a strong crypto product. ("As seen on the Jerry Springer show!") The Dark Forces are making a concerted bid to set the direction and the tone of crypto debate and crypto development in a manner which will lead to the negation of the constitutional right to have our freedom and our privacy unfettered by government intrusion. It is not government, nor corporations, nor the press, who ultimately decide whether our freedom and privacy will be maintained or whether it will be compromised. It is the individuals who make a decision whether to go along with the abrogation of our rights in their own individual self-interest, or whether they will speak out and/or resist those who put the goals of organizations over the interests of the people. Our government and our society are being directed by manipulation of the same mob mentality that is in evidence on the morning talk shows. The voice of reason gets shouted down unless there are enough people who realize that the answer to noise is more noise. The greater the position and authority of an individual, the more noise they are able to make to counter the efforts of those who are attempting to work the mob into a frenzy for their own aims. Thus the greater is their responsibility to act in the long-term interest of freedom. At the same time, unless there are people of conscience at every level of government, corporation and society who are willing to take a personal stand, and to support those in higher positions who take a stand, then freedom is doomed. There is a Swiss bank security guard who discovered bank records about to be shredded which detailed the accounts of Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. He chose to resist "going along" with the government laws, corporate rules, and societal taboos against making a decision based on one's own conscience, and he "stole" the records in order to prevent them from being destroyed. He was threatened with death, prosecution, had to leave his home and country behind and faces an uncertain future. There is a cost to resisting the fascism of organizations and of society itself, and the less that resistance is spread among us, then the greater the cost that each of us has to bear. Resist. Make noise. The freedom you save could be your own. TruthMonger