This comes up regularly, Seth, I may have said it myself, but don't remember, having seen the charge laid here so often about all sorts of upper IQ interesting people. Tim, ever different than most, never denies it, never affirms it, just keeps writing and raging about what he's good at. Nobody who appreciates the sine curve quality of imaginative literature on cpunks will be surprised as what comes of this best seller low roader -- which you got to admire, foretells the future better than most, may Minerva protect us, and goose us into amazing flights of fancy to ward off dulling conventional wisdom, and, as always, Mars-inspired paranoia and rage and petty-minded schemes for making the world worse than ever before in history, that is, aching for shallow recognition like you, and the minor deities, wretched bedfellow provocateurs of discredited authority. Dance the Watusi, drink the blood of patriots and tyrants. Seth Finkelstein you wrote:

I'm telling ya, you heard it from me first, someday we're going to find out that Tim May is a government agent. Not that he started out that way. But somewhere along the line, probably in return for a deal on firearms charges, we'll find out he agreed to be an informant/provocateur. It always amazes me how hidebound are so many of the cypherpunks list members. If the goverment was planning a crack-down on suspicious people, using a few _agents provocateurs_ would be utterly unsurprising.

-- Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer sethf@sethf.com http://sethf.com