Paul Ferguson wrote:

An additional note:

I appreciate Tim's effort to compile a document we can all call our own. In my opinion, its been a long time in coming.

Thanks...I also think my doc has been slow in coming. Like I said, it's taken too long to write. Out of curiousity, I did a search of the doc for Paul's name and was surprised to see that I'd only used one of his quotes. Oh well. People should bear in mind the random nature of how I pulled quotes. Since there may be some interest in this, I'll comment: - Though the FAQ covers material going back for _years_, especially the past 2 years, more recent material is more heavily weighted. That is, recent stuff is likelier to be used. - In particular, once the overall structure took shape (the major chapter headings, the themes), I often would see something that looked "interesting" and would directly attach it, with some massaging of the text, selective elisions, etc., to the appropriate branch of my outline structure. - This means that postings in the last several months are over-represented as compared to earlier stuff from the "archives." (Side Note: I spent perhaps too long, several months back, laboriously using Eudora to sort into folders the many thousands of posts I had on nearly as many topics. The result was awe-inspiring: an optical cartridge containing folders on every conceivable variant of digital money, for example, and containing many hundreds of folders on other topics. The *usefulness* of all this effort--which was by no means a "set it up and walk away" filtering job, as I had to decide on the search criteria, created the filters, etc.--has been less awe-inspiring, as I don't have time to _re-read_ the sorted posts to find good stuff! Still, on each and every topic in the FAQ, I can call up multiple posts by people, and I could probably double the size of the FAQ just by including tidbits from these posts. The Cypherpunks have written a truly astounding amoun to good stuff.) I also don't want to leave the impression that I am not looking for additional comments and elaborations. I am. But there's great danger in people using the points made in the FAQ to just expand or elaborate on. I know how addictive it is to comment on what people have written.... So, send your comments. I'm skeptical of "stone soup FAQs" ("Here's a short outline...send me stuff"), which is why I've written what I've written. But comments and corrections are always welcome, as I make clear in the accompanying docs. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."