Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com> writes:

But Tim's conclusions are way off-target. Just because you have access to information doesn't mean you've been co-opted. For instance, contrary to what Tim says, I've never "promised to spin the story in a certain way."

You don't have to promise. You're very predictable. Given certain inputs you're very likely to write certain outputs.

I mean, geez, if nothing else, look at what I've been writing. Last Thursday I wrote about how the Federal government should get out of the business of "protecting privacy." On Friday I wrote about how "protecting children" from animated cartoon images is another pretext for Net-censorship. Who else is saying that?

Can a mailing list poster silence others by talking too much? --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 10:10 -0700 6/16/97, Tim May wrote:

Some of you, including Declan, have read too much in my comments. I did not say he _had_ sold out, I said in several places there is a well-known danger of becoming assimilated by the Washington system. Reread what I said.

(By the way, I've never suggested Declan would lose his ideological bearings. Democrats and Republicans who become assimilated remain true to their roots, but they see everything as part of a larger system, a negotiation. They lose their ability to see in outside the Beltway simple terms. The giveaway will be if and when Declan begins to say that things are not so simple.)

What I found interesting about Tim's comments above is how he neglects to mention libertarians. Certainly he realizes my "ideological bearings" are much closer to libertarianism than conservatism or modern liberalism. Do the folks at the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, IFJ, IHS, or AEI "lose their ability to see in simple terms?" I suggest not. -Declan PS: Details about negotiations and who's-backing-what-bill and what the political tradeoffs will be are often astoundingly complex. But the underlying principles remain crystal-clear: government out of our private lives.

At 10:10 AM 6/16/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:

I wish Declan well, really. But his frequent name-dropping about soirees he's been invited to, bigwigs he's had power lunches with...well, I think the evolution has been set in motion.

Foo ... On a list with several millionares, people who make the New York Times Magazine cover, people who get in the Times for successfully suing the NSA, college students who get covered on National Public Radio, people who were in Wired before it was c001, people who drop in on Esther in New York because they'll be too busy to see her at Hackers', people who were Xanadudes or SGML hackers decades before the Web caught on, people who were on the Well before that Grateful Dead lyricist got there, various wizards of speed and time, folks who have Japanese tv crews show up for their parties and already know Tim Leary when he drops... by, I'd say we have enough people who are or know Silicon Valley insiders to really complain much when people from the Other Coast talk about who _they_ had lunch with :-) # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

At 9:59 pm -0400 on 6/18/97, Steve Schear wrote:

"Atoms to Bits: The Future of Money," in the June/July edition of Markets magazine (page 17), appears to have an unattributed quote from our very own Bob Hettinga:

Yeah. the guy who wrote it said that he did attribute it to me, but since I was "someone the average Telerate user wouldn't recognise", the copy editors killed it. Maybe I should write a letter to the editor or something, but I seem to be aspiring to lethargy on the issue at the moment... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

At 12:01 PM -0700 6/16/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:

What I found interesting about Tim's comments above is how he neglects to mention libertarians. Certainly he realizes my "ideological bearings" are much closer to libertarianism than conservatism or modern liberalism.

Now this is _really_ reading too much into things. As with several of your "in the paragraphs Tim chose to elide" sorts of comments, you are imputing motives that aren't there. I mentioned Republicans and Democrats--and not Black Panthers, Libertarians, Maoists, and Galambosians, for example--becuase these two factions account for 99% of those in D.C., reporters included. As to why I "elide" paragraphs, I do it as I always do it, to save space and to adhere to the "never quote more than a half page of text" rule of thumb. (Something I wish more writers would do. When I see a screenful of quoted material, I'll usually at least scroll down to the next page: if more stuff is quoted, I'm often likely to just hit the "D" key.) I never set out to elide material so as to misrepresent people. Granted, there are some who think their point is automatically subtracted from if every golden word is not quoted, but, like I said, I try to begin my response to a post before a screenfull has been quoted, with the quoted material only serving as a reminder to the reader of what the other person had already said. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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."

At 11:30 PM -0700 6/16/97, Bill Stewart wrote:

Foo ... On a list with several millionares, people who make the New York Times Magazine cover, people who get in the Times for successfully suing the NSA, college students who get covered on National Public Radio, people who were in Wired before it was c001, people who drop in on Esther in New York because they'll be too busy to see her at Hackers', people who were Xanadudes or SGML hackers decades before the Web caught on, people who were on the Well before that Grateful Dead lyricist got there, various wizards of speed and time, folks who have Japanese tv crews show up for their parties and already know Tim Leary when he drops... by, I'd say we have enough people who are or know Silicon Valley insiders to really complain much when people from the Other Coast talk about who _they_ had lunch with :-)

I asked Marc what he thought of this, and he suggested we wander over and ask Ted. Ted said it had to do with everything being deeply intertwingled. The other Ted, the microprocessor guy, just wanted to get back to woodworking. Later on I ran into Whit and he said he hadn't given it much thought, but that maybe Larry had. I resolved to ask Gordon how he dealt with this situation, but I may not run into him for awhile. Next Saturday I'll ask Woz, assuming he show's up at Alan's party as he usually does. What was your point again? (On a serious note, I take Bill's point. But I am not criticizing Declan's growing list of contacts, I am really commenting on the "gossipy" aspect of all D.C. politics. "There's no there, there," to paraphrase the Other Dorothy (and not the Oz one). In D.C., the whole political process is a series of social contacts. This is markedly different from life here in the Greater Bay Area (100 miles north-south, 20 miles east-west), where the technology and products dominate over gossip. Or so I think. Reporters in the Bay Area are much less dependent on spin doctors for their stories.) --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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."

Another way of viewing the Washington reporter problem is to view him as a Hollywood reporter, sort of an Army Archerd character "doing lunch" at Chasen's and The Brown Derby, not to mention doing lines at the Viper Club. But a more accurate comparison is to crime beat reporters, those scribblers who hang out at the Mafia watering holes and social clubs (when they're allowed in, to spin a story in a favorable way), reporting on the turf battles between the rival factions, and leaking out rumors of who's planning to make a move on Vinnie Bones. Washington is more than just a "pork barrel"...it's the world's largest and most lavishly funded criminal enterprise, with "dons" dispensing pork to supplicants, with new agencies intervening in private and corporate transactions to throw roadblocks up, the better to extract tribute. One can imagine Declan's story: So I was like nervous as I met Donny the Arm, consigliero for the Kennedy Family, at a dark little Irish pub in Georgetown. I could see he'd brought some SS muscle with him, waiting out in his beamer. Nervous because I knew what the Don's men had done to that reporter covering the Mary Jo Kopechne accident. So I got right to the point. "I hear Billy the Chin is prepared to give some "consideration" to Jimmy out in the Valley if he gets some consideration in return, something like a 5 big ones contribution to the Midnight Video Arcade program?," I asked. "Ya heard right. Nobody said like we're no reasonable, or sumpin.' Say, what's a good mick like you doin' talking to that wop D'Amato?," the aide to Don Eddie said. I pressed him to return to the point about allowing Netscape to export full-strength crypto if they make a contribution to the President's favorite inner city program. "Well," Donny the Arm said, "It's like this: before we tell the guys over in Export to let his stuff out, we would, like, want some consideration." I was puzzled, so I asked him what kind of consideration he was tallking about. "You wearin' a wire or sumpin'? Yo, you fall out of a tree, or sumpin'?" My next visit that night was to a posh hunting lodge out in horse country, home of most of the dons in the Reps Gang. Their leader, Newt the Shooter laid it out in his own straight-shooting style. "We're prepared to deal. If Billie the Chin signs off on the tax cuts to our industries, and if the tobacco subsidy is restored, we're prepared to support the Family's plan to repeal the First Amendment. It hardly fits with family values, anyway." I had two more parties to get to that night, so I bid the boys a good night and got back in my beat up car and headed off to Dupont Circle. I heard that Sally the Schemer, doyenne of the Washington social circle, had some juicy news on how Dotty the Crypto Chick was being placed in the Witness Security Program. One more day in the life of Declan McCullagh, Washington Crime Family Reporter There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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."

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 01:50 PM 6/18/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:

Washington is literally nothing more than just the world's largest shakedown racket, with taxpayers being extorted amounts of money probably unprecedented in world history (*), with various factions dispensing favors to some and punishing others.

Each year, the U.S. federal government steals and spends more money (and more actual value) than any government has ever stolen and blown before in the history of mankind. It has been the record holder for more than 50 years and each year it breaks its own record. I am aware that this is because the U.S. is the world's largest economy but that fact does not diminish the scale of the theft. DCF "And still they want more." -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBM6hgs4VO4r4sgSPhAQE9dwP/VtpR6VWejpDnunTOQhiJwq/MwQTRvGD2 faBIJ3OrahlzlylwyN0b9pCFXMMDrzKR5ANED9ccPmy3ZqL1RWYhN4WO3Yf5ooxA 6NoPTelrwLGo15EjM6MjvyPXhid4qDfLlyNi8qocI3FKHsEANW63yktZb7eeoCJ3 mXQ9CHePPS4= =stVA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

At 11:37 AM -0700 6/18/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:

At 20:34 -0700 6/17/97, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:

...

hee, hee, I hope that Declan comes up with an amusing mishmash of your own life. turnabout is fair play. maybe if he doesn't, someone else can take a stab at satirizing mr. debauched millionaire playboy who dabbles in cryptography theory.

I was far from offended by Tim's post; in fact, I thought it was hilarious.

And I took pains to make sure it was not taken as a malicious attack. It was, if anything, a reflection of my realization (known before, but not in this version) that Washington is literally nothing more than just the world's largest shakedown racket, with taxpayers being extorted amounts of money probably unprecedented in world history (*), with various factions dispensing favors to some and punishing others. Bruce Sterling, at CFP '97, had an awe-inspiring rant about this essential criminality of governments around the world, how they use their powers to shake down businessmen and citizens, how they are complicit in the drug trade, how, of course, the drug trade wouldn't even exist in its current criminal form if governments did not collude to criminalize drugs and then run drugs in to their customers in the CIA's C-5 cargo planes. Sterling discussed the "government as biggest crime syndicate" situtations in several major countries, including Mexico, where the "Institutionalized Revolutionary Party" (I'm not making that up, a la Orwell) kills its opponents and runs the drug economy, Russia ('nuff said), Turkey (right wing Pope killers, CIA station chiefs, and drug lords riding in the same crashed car), and, last but not least, the United States of America. (I hope a transcript is somewhere available on the Web, but his delivery was done to perfection, so I hope a video of it is someday realeased. Airing his 10-minute (I think) speech would be vastly more helpful to the anti-fascist cause than all the meaningless "I take the Pledge" PR stuff.)

But perhaps I will come up with a "Day in the Life of Tim 'Lock and Load' May, renegade cypherpunk, millionaire playboy, and curmudgeonly crypto-anarchist." Anyone want to join me in writing it?

No skin off my nose. Some good satire would be refreshing. Whomever was doing the "Cypherpunks Enquirer" has apparently moved on to other things. Neither Vulis' robograms nor Detweiler's foamings are very interesting. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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."

At 7:20 PM -0700 6/18/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:

At 9:59 pm -0400 on 6/18/97, Steve Schear wrote:

...

"Atoms to Bits: The Future of Money," in the June/July edition of Markets magazine (page 17), appears to have an unattributed quote from our very own Bob Hettinga:

Yeah. the guy who wrote it said that he did attribute it to me, but since I was "someone the average Telerate user wouldn't recognise", the copy editors killed it.

After this happened to me a while back, I told a later reporter that I expected any quotes from me would be credited, as they were my words. I told him I was not releasing my rights to these words, and that I wanted a written, faxed, or e-mailed contract to this effect. He said he had no control over how his editors altered quotes, reworded them, or deleted credits, so we ended our discussion at this point. (No, this was not Declan.) Not that it matters. Face it, our words in print vanish without a trace, and are remembered by nobody except ourselves. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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."