"...long live cypherpunks?" "So long, and thanks for all the fish?" But, seriously, folks... Lucky Green echoed many of my own thoughts when he talked about all the things being on this list has meant to him. Like Lucky, there is a rediculously huge list of things that this list has taught me over the almost three (wow..) years or so that I've been here. Thanks to all of you here, I have had nothing short of a Copernican transformation in my perception of the universe, and it completely changed what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. From the very first time I started reading this list and applying what I learned here to what I already knew, right then, for the first time in a *very* long time, I knew *exactly* how some very important pieces of the world actually worked, and more important, why they were going to change. I now *know* where the world is going to go. Maybe not when, of course, but certainly where and how. :-) (Old stock picker's joke: "I can tell you what. I can tell you when. I can't tell you both. If I did, I wouldn't tell *you*.") Anyway, I've learned all these things from many cypherpunks, some still here, and a lot who've left. I expect that, as we move into the next phase of this "group", we'll continue to teach ourselves much more about the world and strong cryptography's effect on it. But, nothing will compare to the feeling we'll get when we remember the time we've spent here at Toad Hall. We have John Gilmore to thank for the "lodgings", of course, and, certainly, for his encouragement and support. And, obviously, his tolerance, which finally sagged and broke under the weight of both his expectations and those of our own. We also have to thank Tim May for his um, ideological, presence on this list from since before it existed, :-), and, or course, for his current "leadership", both moral and political. (Of course, I can say all the next few wierd and gushy things about him without fear of refutation on his part, 'cause, in his wisdom, I'm still in his killfile ;-)) It was Tim who was our compass. It was Tim who came down from the mountain and stopped us from worshiping the fatted calf of censorship, and who is now leading us into the promised land of unfettered discourse, both on usenet and on the new cypherpunk server network. Since Tim paper-trained most of us here (myself included, though some may debate how well he succeeded :-)), that is, how to behave on this list, and, most important, how to imagine what a world of strong crytography on ubiquitous networks would look like, I now find his "leading" us out onto the net, and away from Sinai, most symmetrical indeed. :-). And so, in this last 24 hours or so on toad.com, I want to thank *both* Tim and John. But, also, I personally want to thank the "money-punks". People like Eric Hughes, and Perry Metzger, and Ian Goldberg, and Hal Finney, and Lucky Green, and Duncan Frissell, and Black Unicorn, and many, many other people, who have helped me work through, on this list, or in private e-mail, or, occasionally, in person, all of the stuff they know, and the stuff I have figured out myself. All about e$, about digital bearer certificate markets, about microintermediation. All the things which completely occupy almost all my waking thoughts these days. Because of this list's effect on my life, I have been motivated to start the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, to evangelize financial cryptography to any audience who would listen to me, to create a web site dedicated to e$, to create a group of e$ lists with some 300 total subscribers, to work with Vinnie Moscaritolo to create both the Mac-Crypto lists and conferences, to work with Vince Cate and Ray Hirschfeld to create the world's first peer-reviewed conference on financial cryptography, and with Vince and Ian Goldberg to create the world's first intensive financial cryptography bootcamp (which is going on as I write this). To create, with Vinnie, and Rachel Wilmer, and Anthony Templer, and Bob Antia, and Rodney Thayer, the next generation of the e$ website and mailing lists. Next week, I go to FC97 in Anguilla because of the things I've learned on this list. In the middle of March, I go to Cupertino to help Vinnie with Mac-Crypto 2.0, because of the things I've learned on this list. I've been invited to speak all over the world (and New Hampshire, too :-)) to talk about this stuff. I get quoted in the newspapers. I write magazine op-ed pieces. It has even earned me a buck or two. :-). In short, I owe everything I do of any consequence these days to my participation on this list, and, for that, I'm profoundly grateful to all of you for the privelege of being here: to listen, to learn, and, occasionally, to pay back all the stuff I've learned with a thing or two that I've worked out myself. Like that creosote bush I talked about before, cypherpunks is not going to die just because the address "cypherpunks@toad.com" ceases to exist. There are already 3rd-order cypherpunks lists out there. 3rd generation copies of the same "memetic" material. cypherpunks will *never* die, short of a cybernetic Chixalub event of some kind, and, frankly, even then. The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it. So. In a very real sense, today on cypherpunks is like any other day in the life of a creosote bush. It's a big desert, folks. We're the only ones who know how to live out here. The whole damn desert, as far as the eye can see, is ours to move into. All we have to do is keep filling in the empty spots... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/