On Sun, 15 Jan 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:

...

WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know there _was_ a charter.

Or a Jude Milhon, for that matter. Another example of the continuing decay of a once proud magazine...

Uhm, this is funny 8) Jude is the patron saint of a losing battle, the one to keep the Internet free, and to fuck with media as much as possible when it brings fun. And the gravy whick dominatrix, all rolled into a few. she's also a freind so watch it punk 8)

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:

...

WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know there _was_ a charter.

Or a Jude Milhon, for that matter. Another example of the continuing decay of a once proud magazine...

I'm not sure what Perry's not having heard of Jude Milhon is supposed to mean, or how "Wired" interviewing her is "another example of the continuing decay," etc. In any case, Jude Milhon has been active in the hacker-writer community, going back to the 1970s. Steven Levy's "Hackers" has several pages on her role in various things happening in the Lee Felsenstein circle of folks (there may be some of you who have no idea who Lee is....I can only hope that when you find interviews with him you not assume decay is occurring). More recently she was an editor at "Mondo 2000" and has had various connections to Cypherpunks. Jude was indeed the coiner of the "cypherpunk" term, and was at most of the early meetings, for at least the first year. (My FAQ will have more information on how Jude came to think of the name and whatnot.) She's not presently subscribed and hence can't speak up in this strange matter of how an interview with her implies a magazine is in decay. (I'm hoping this is not what Perry really meant, but I can't see any other interpretations based on what I quoted above.) I just don't think Jude deserves this kind of casual trashing. While I haven't been reading "Mondo" regularly for a couple of years, and while I'm getting bored with "Wired," this doesn't mean that people being interviewed deserve trashing. (Indeed, the "bleeding edge" trendiness of "Wired," say, means that nearly anything once "wired" is fated to be marked as "tired" by the "stimulate me!" Starbucks crowd of techno-yuppies. Unlike a more staid journal, like "Nature" or "The Economist," as examples, trendy techno-style mags like "Wired," "Spin," "boing boing," "Future Sex," and a hundred other wirehead variants of "Vogue" and "People" will appeal precisely to the style mavens who so fickly announce what is trendy and what is not. Anyone who professes to be "disappointed" by "Wired" was clearly taken in by their hype. (For what it's worth, I still enjoy flipping through the pages, often finding one or two items that spark my thinking. No, much of it is junk. So what else is new?) Oh, and on Rishab's original point about "charter members," I took this in the usual figurative sense. A charter member of the Cypherpunks is basically just a card-carrying member. (Hint: Find your own cards.) --Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | 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. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

Sorry. Everyone seems to be assuring me that I should know her and that she's a longtime friend of Eric's, but I must admit that I've no memory of anything she's done. I believe people who say she's the origin of the term "cypherpunk", but I must admit to still having no real knowledge of who this person is.

In any case, I apologize for my ignorance and will try be on less of a hair trigger in the future. However, following a long stream of Wired interviews of bizarrely marginal community members, I simply assumed this was Yet Another.

And I apologize to Perry for not being even more elliptic in my questioning of his language. It's jus that Jude is pretty well known out here, at least by the group that was at the early meetings, and so.... One thing I've found is that the electronic age has made me more careful about insulting specific people. The Kibo Effect, call it. (Hi, Kibo!) General insults, or political statements, are of course kosher, but making any kind of snide remarks about Joe Foobar, for example, will often result in these comments being fed to the at person. (I recently made some comments here on this list about a public Net person, whom I do not believe is or was subscribed...a few days later I got a note from this person objecting to my characterization of his views! I am assuming someone forwarded the traffic to him.) So, if I see a "marginal" person interviewed by "Wired," I am circumspect about commenting on them...they might be on the list, they might actually be doing something important, etc. (Like that unknown guy "Andreeson," or somesuch...I don't have any idea what he's done, and I never heard of him before last year, but all the hype-zines are putting him on their covers, so he must be doing something interesting :).) Anyway, many of the folks "Wired" and the other hype-zines interview are indeed strange and marginal. To be expected. There are only so many of the standard "talking heads" that can be interviewed (the stand-bys like Engelbart, Nelson, Toffler, Pournelle, etc.). Frankly, I'd rather see a story on "Zippies," about which I'd heard nothing substantive before, than Yet Another Ted Nelson Story, about which I've heard entirely too much over the past decade. (Not to insult Ted--Hi, Ted!--but there are only so many ways to tell the Xanadu story...time for new approaches.) I know some folks in the crypto/PGP community who were quite miffed that such "marginal" folks as Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, and I were featured on the cover of "Wired" 1.2 two years ago...they naturally saw themselves as being more worthy, as perhaps they were....such is life. The "credit assignment problem" in evolution and genetic programming remains a tough one. Finally, "Wired" is still mixing stories about flakes with seminal articles, such as the one on "FinCEN" a while back. That makes it still worth looking at, at least to me. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero | 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. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

Anyway, many of the folks "Wired" and the other hype-zines interview are indeed strange and marginal. To be expected. There are only so many of the standard "talking heads" that can be interviewed (the stand-bys like Engelbart, Nelson, Toffler, Pournelle, etc.).

Frankly, I'd rather see a story on "Zippies," about which I'd heard nothing substantive before, than Yet Another Ted Nelson Story, about which I've heard entirely too much over the past decade. (Not to insult Ted--Hi, Ted!--but there are only so many ways to tell the Xanadu story...time for new approaches.)

I know some folks in the crypto/PGP community who were quite miffed that such "marginal" folks as Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, and I were featured on the cover of "Wired" 1.2 two years ago...they naturally saw themselves as being more worthy, as perhaps they were....such is life. The "credit assignment problem" in evolution and genetic programming remains a tough one.

I'm not sure that that's the case. Just because you move in dramatically politically incorrect circles (no insult intended) you may tend to get interviewed more than, say, I would. The fact that I might be working on more important or interesting things is completely irrelevent. Cypherpunks is 'hot', so the press goes to who are perceived to be the 'movers and shakers' and they are talked to. The people working behind the scenes on stuff often are ignored in deference to those who are more visible. Again, no insult intended, but I think there's a large measure of truth in it. The same people keep getting the press while the larger bulk of the population gets ignored. It's also geographically-oriented, too - the folks on the West Coast tend to get the majority of the press, followed by the East Coast. Anyone in between is basically ignored. I guess the press thinks that no one outside of Silicon Valley or Boston is working on anything of any substance. Hell, look at Linux - that was done by a guy in Finland, and a college student at that. I'll bet that's rather embarassing to the "hot shots" in Cupertino :) -- Ed Carp, N7EKG Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com 801/534-8857 voicemail 801/460-1883 digital pager Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key an88744@anon.penet.fi ** PGP encrypted email preferred! ** Cop: "How many beers have you had tonight, bro?" Suspect: "Seventy." -- from the TV show "Cops"

Jude was indeed the coiner of the "cypherpunk" term, and was at most of the early meetings, for at least the first year. (My FAQ will have more information on how Jude came to think of the name and whatnot.)

I, for one, would like to see this - I've only been on the list for a bit over two years, and I'd never heard of Jude, either. -- Ed Carp, N7EKG Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com 801/534-8857 voicemail 801/460-1883 digital pager Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key an88744@anon.penet.fi ** PGP encrypted email preferred! ** "How many beers have you had tonight, bro?" "Seventy." -- "Cops"