HAPPY GUY FAWKES DAY!

[C Kuethe]

On Tue, 5 Nov 1996, Michael Craft wrote:

> >                           SANDY SANDFORT
> > 
> > On this day in 1605 the Gunpowder Plot was foiled.  Guy Fawkes
> > and his compatriots had intended to blow up Parliment.
> > The English celebrate it because Guy Fawkes failed.
> > I celebrate it because he tried.  :-)
> 
> A terrorist!!!   Call the police!!
> 

Where would we be if he hadn't tried?  I tend to agree with Sandy on this
one.  BTW, I am humor-impaired, so this might be a response taking your
attempt at humor too seriously.

In fact where would we be if a lot of other things hadn't been tried.
George Boole, Charles Babbage, Allan Turing.  They were laughed at/
scorned for trying.  Aren't we all Guy Fawkes in a way?  Cypherpunks I
mean.  I still have faith in us.  I quote the cypherpunks manifesto:

     We don't care much if you don't approve of the software 
     we write.  We know that software can't be destroyed and
     ...shut down.

Idealism and stretching things a bit, maybe, but there is a parallel to be
drawn.  How many of us use crypto illegally and don't care? How many of us
care that it's illegal to use crypto and thats why we do it.  How often
have we seen this propelled overseas in the signatures of cypherpunks:

          RSA in 3 lines of PERL:
          #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
          $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
          lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

What is this saying?  Well I know one guy who tried to uudecode it and
find out.  But really, it is in a way a Guy Fawkes thing... Big Bro's
being irresponsible, immature, <your adjective here>.  We must show BB
that we do not condone it.

Violence won't work.  Yeah...next C'Punks meeting outside NSA HQ.
Everybody bring your own bombs and guns. That would go over *really* well.
But at least all the papers would write about us.  So we're forced into
something like this.  Export a munition three times daily.  Geez...BB
could really get you hardcore.  And what's even funnier: the
whitehouse.gov autoresponder.  Dear King Billy: I just exported a munition
illegally.  Have a nice day.  And they don't care. Whitehouse just replies
"Thanks. nice letter"  So we, the peons are getting ignored again.  We
should do something to get noticed.

I cried the day I got my drivers licence and social insurance number. THe
gov't now knows who I am... for so many years I was a non-taxable
non-entity who showed up occasionally as someone's dependant at tax time.
Then, suddenly i was a swiftly accessible statistic. EVIL EVIL EVIL.

So saying we salute those who tried makes us terrorists... no.  Guy is
much maligned... and it's a much more efecive way of changing the gov't
than is on lowly ballot.  :)  Statistically that is.  Gee this was almost
on topic.... but really.  Let's try... instead of complain.  And those who
have tried: I salute you.

 --
Chris Kuethe <ckuethe at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> LPGV Electronics and Controls
http://www.ualberta.ca/~ckuethe/
RSA in 3 lines of PERL:
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)