The questions "Who are the Cypherpunks?" and "Who shall speak for us?" have come up several times, in different contexts: -- Reporters want "human interest" stories for their other stories on Netscape cracks, SSL challenges, arrests, executions, etc. They want to know who we are, what our agenda is, what motivates us, and who our spokesmen are. -- "Who shall be our Spokesman?" keeps coming up. "Who shall speak for us?" -- There is once again talk about "getting organized" so as to better compete with EPIC, EFF, CPSR, VTW, ACLU, etc. While no one is seriously advocating a formal, dues-collecting organization, their is an undercurrent of thought that we had better get more organized or we'll just be roadkill on the information superduperhighway. -- And there seems to be a sense of uneasiness amongst some of us that there can't be a "Cypherpunks group" without organization, without hierarchy. In contrast, there have been points made that we are "nothing," not even a group, and that we are only a set of mailing list subscribers. I think this is too extreme a view, as we clearly have: * some sense of membership in a group, some sense of cohesion, some sense of "Us" vs. "Them." * regional activities in several parts of the U.S. and in some non-U.S. countries. * a growing archive of postings, of knowledge gained through hard work. So, we are _more_ than just the subscribers to a mailing list, but _less_ than a formal organization with shareholders, voters, elected officials, and a Great Leader at the top. What are we, then? One parallel is to a bunch of folks who meet at a gathering spot, perhaps a bar or pub. Perhaps a reading group, a book club. People who talk, speculate, exchange theories, and even decide on things that some of them will do. Maybe these folks, an ever-changing set of folks, will come to some commonly-held viewpoints, though not held by all folks, and not "voted on" to be the Official Position of this informal gathering of folks at the local bar. Cyberspace allows for all sorts of new kinds of "watering holes" where such emergent, loosely-organized, anarchic groups may develop. These "virtual communities" are an incredibly important development. (My paper given at Imagina '95, in Monte Carlo, "Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities," goes into this in detail.) Another parallel is to what is sometimes called an "invisible college." Academic researchers in a country or around the world form a loose kind of invisible college, a network of people at various institutions that share a common interest and that have certain emergent standards. Think of the cryptology researchers, or the fusion researchers, of the world. In this invisible college, reputations matter. Some researchers are more esteemed than others, some play different roles than others. Some of them are mostly teachers, others are buried deeply in their laboratories. And, as with the informal pub gathering, this invisible college does not have to "vote" on an official position, or "elect" leaders. Ah, I hear some of you pointing out, "But in fact some of these invisible colleges _do_ elect officials and _do_ have official positions!" Indeed, many invisible colleges develop subsets that have formal structures and become the de facto _professional guilds_ for their organizations. The American Association of Chiropractic Examiners, the French League of Graph Paper Experts, the Russian Federation of Agriculturists, and on and on. (More seriously, the American Bar Association, the American Medical Associatio, etc.) Often these "professional organizations" are designed to extend the reach of these organizations, to give official titles to the early organizers, and to lobby governments for laws favorable to their members. Often these formal organizations adopt licensing rules and regulations to "police themselves" and also, in well-known cases of "public choice" theory and "rent-seeking behavior," to limit the number of competitors. Often the other hierarchies, such as the State itself, endorse the rules adopted by the professional guilds. (I'm not saying anyone is directly arguing that the Cypherpunks, not even by innuendo, become a professional guild, but some of the clamoring about how we need to adopt a less threatening or strange name, organize ourselves more hierchically, and present a more unified front is often a step toward a rigid bureaucracy.) It's been gratifying to me, at least, that the Cypherpunks group has not fallen prey to this temptation, that in an important sense "we practice what we preach." We claim to be an "anarchy," not a "hierarchy." While it may be the case that each of us has his or her own personal heirarchical ratings of others, it is important that we never have tried to formalize or "vote on" these ratings. Or voted to elect a Great Leader. Our strength is in our numbers and in our ideas, not in the guy we have ensconced in an office in Washington so he can give press conferences and sound bites for journalists. Our strength is in our multi-headed (dare I mention "Medusa"?), multinational, informal lack of structure. "But how will _We_ compete with the organizations that have Washington offices? How will we get "air time" if we have no Spokespunk in Washington, or no list of Official Spokespunks that journalists can call to get The Cypherpunks Slant on things? Who shall speak for us?" The answer is simple: Let no one claim to speak for "us." Let no one claim to be a speaker for others. Let journalists adjust to a new way of speaking, a nonhierarchical way of saying "I think" and "My view is." Let journalists contact the people actually doing something they are writing about. Let journalists call the people directly involved, not the Official Spokespunks. It may be _easier_ for some journalists to simply call the guy they always call, just to get a "reaction quote," but our job is not to make it easier for some lazy journalists. And let those who dislike the name "Cypherpunks" call themselves something else. Nothing's stopping them. Of course, it may be that the people wanting a more conservative, more staid name also wish to "inherit" the mantle the Cypherpunks now have, wish to convey to the "International Association of Cybernetic Privacy Advocates," or whatever, the membership and reputation of the current and past Cypherpunks. This, I think, is the "old way" of doing things, the herd way. If the views many of us have about anarchy and cyberspace are correct, this way of operating represents the future. If not, who cares what we think? --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."