Mr. Noise writes:

Having received my copy of the latest Whole Earth Review yesterday, I expected to see a pile of messages about the article by Kevin Kelly on "Cypherpunks, E-Money, & Technologies of Disconnection"...but maybe, like me, you've all been too busy to read the article all the way through. ....

Well, anyway, it seems Mr. Kelly has spent some time talking to list member (guru?) Tim May, Phil Zimmerman, & a bunch of other cypherpunk folk, so how about some reactions to the article from those he talked to?

I haven't seen the newstand issue yet and haven't thought too much about it. Kevin Kelly first contacted me last fall because of some posts I'd made on sci.crypt (Round 1 of the "key registration" battle, before we knew the government planned this key escrow thing, happened when I wrote an article for Extropians, Cypherpunks (very young then), and sci.crypt entitled "A Trial Balloon to Ban Encryption?"). Kelly talked to me, Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, circa December, and attended two Cypherpunks physical meetings. (We had a debate around then about whether journalists should be allowed, invited, or ignored...the eventual outcome was that help should be provided to journalists interested in these issues.) Kevin Kelly visited my house near Santa Cruz and we talked for several hours. He was also commissioning an article for "Wired" by Steven Levy, who also talked to several of us. Hence the double articles, which were both written at about the same time. (There's also a Julian Dibell piece for "The Village Voice" in the works...maybe the stuff he's aleady written is *it* , maybe there's going to be more.)

...& is it me, or is the WER/WELL/cypherpunks/Wired/EFF/etc. crowd starting to get just a *little* inbred? (In a nice way, of course...) I feel as though Kelly, Sterling, Brand, Levy, et al. are my best buddies & I don't think we've ever exchanged e-mail (well, once or twice maybe), they just keep popping up everywhere I turn. Heck, I may even have to write R.U.Sirius into my will, he feels like such an old pal...

I agree with Mr. Noise about this and am trying to "lay low" as much as possible. However, if journalists are interested in our kinds of topics, they'll write stories. The Cypherpunks list doesn't "assign" members to be interviewed....the journalists sniff the air for interesting hooks and angles to center a piece on. The work of Zimmermann is very obvious (though he's not on the list...he did attend one meeting), as are the obvious battles with the NSA being fought by John Gilmore. I can think of several others who have stuff going on that would make interesting stories. For now, the "cyberspace" community is largely defined by the magazines mentioned, and a few others ("Boing Boing," 'Extropy,"....). Hence the incestuous nature. (Also, the editors and writers know each other and have longstanding credentials in the hacker community.) I hope this little summary gives some perspective on why so many articles are now appearing. The timing is perfect, even if 98% of Americans have never heard of Clipper. -Tim -- .......................................................................... 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: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.