CDR: bsp - RSA expiration party this Thursday (Free!)

[Sameer Parekh]

	NOTE: The schedule has changed a bit because we recently learned that
the music at the Great American Music Hall can't go past 1:15.

==
	Celebrate with us as we celebrate the end of an era

	The Big RSA Patent Expiration Party
	A fundraiser for the Cryptorights Foundation
	(http://www.cryptorights.org/)

	produced by

	The Cryptorights Foundation (http://www.cryptorights.org/)

	musical production by

	BPM Consulting International (http://www.bpm.ai/)

	with special thanks to our Gold Sponsor

	Certicom (http://www.certicom.com/)

	also sponsored by

	VA Linux (http://www.valinux.com/)
	PAIP International (http://www.paip.net/)

	vital production help from

	Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/)
	The Shmoo Group (http://www.shmoo.com/)
	The Secret Order of Former Primes (http://www.krev.org/mos/sofp/)
	The Cypherpunks (http://www.cryptorights.org/meetingpunks/)

	webcast by

	Technostate Underground Communications (http://www.technostate.com/)
	Virtual Recordings (http://www.virtualrecordings.com/)

	sound by

	Cloudfactory (http://www.cloudfactory.org/)

	The Great American Music Hall (http://www.musichallsf.com/)
	859 O'Farrell St. (between Polk & Larkin)
	21+
	Directions: http://www.musichallsf.com/info/directions/

	On the evening after the expiration of the patent
	21 September, 2000: 8PM-1:30AM

	By invitation only. In order to receive your invitation, send an
email with the # of people who plan to attend to
<mailto:rsa-patent-benefit at cryptorights.org> Entrance is free, but the
Cryptorights Foundation will be accepting donations at the door.

	The evening begins promptly at 8PM with speakers from the
cryptography and human rights fields. The Great American Music Hall's
kitchen will be open until 10:30, so show up early, have dinner, and
listen to some fine speeches.

	Speakers for the evening will include:

	Mistress of Ceremonies: Cindy Cohn -- Legal Director, EFF
	Master of Ceremonies: John Gilmore -- Founder, EFF

	Dave Del Torto: Founder, CRF
	Cindy Cohn: Legal Director, EFF
	Ian Goldberg: Head Cypherpunk, Zero Knowledge Systems
	Matt Blaze: AT&T Research
	John Gilmore: Electronic Frontier Foundation

	CRF Steel Rose Awards Presented by
		Dave Del Torto

	CRF Lifetime Acheivement Award Presentation

	Keynote/Last Word: David Chaum

	Finally, at 9:30PM, the beats will drop and your evening will end
with the slamming techno sounds of the San Francisco underground!

Featuring DJs

Sameer (FnF, Cloudfactory, Urban Wasteland, Mad Hatter, trustcrew)
	Sameer has been active in the San Francisco underground throwing
parties since 1993. In 1999 with some of the crew he met through
Friends & Family he started throwing the legendary Urban Wasteland
parties in urban renegade locations in and around the East Bay. He
also picked up his first slab of wax in early 1999 and has been
playing sick pounding techno at parties around the world since then.
He is also involved in producing a weekly club in Oakland called the
Mad Hatter. Sameer is also known as the founder of C2Net, the company
that pioneered the international development of strong cryptography to
avoid United States export restrictions.

DJ Tektrix (Sister, Tetractys, Influence Recordings)
	Cary, a/k/a DJ Tektrix, moved to San Francisco in 1997. Since then
Tektrix has played alongside DJs such as Forest Green, Twerk, Terrac,
Plateshifter, Mike Sims, Darin Marshall, Sean Murray, J-Bird, Tom L-G,
2x4 with DJ Zeel, Sifu, HoneyB, and Ethan. In 1999 she threw a party
called Circle that took place at the Mother's Cookies Warehouse,
conducted weekly live internet and pirate radio broadcasts on Vulcan
Free Radio, and this year became a resident at Tetractys and Sister.
She has played at parties such as Static, Circle, Overworld, and
Topica.

Forest Green (Cloudfactory, Sister, XLR8R, technologix, FnF)
	Forest Green has been throwing down beats with the sickness for
several years. She has traveled both across the nation and into Canada
to bring the sick Techno sound to those in need. you might also know
her as one of the starring DJs from the hit underground movie Groove!

also featuring tracks produced by the EFF's very own:

Patrick Norager (Virtual Recordings, RadioEFF)
	Patrick is the Station Manager at Radio EFF, and a musical recording
artist in his own right. Patrick has produced some phat tracks
especially for this event, including phat rhythm tracks under audio
samples of famed investigative journalist Duncan Campbell talking to a
Cypherpunks meeting last year about his work on revealing the
existence of ECHELON. Be sure to listen for them during the music
portion of the evening.

==
Event Features

Food & Drinks:
	The Bar (this is a 21+ event) and Kitchen at the GAMH will be open
for your patronage, and there will be tables and chairs available on
the main floor and the balcony for anyone wishing to dine or drink
(please designate a driver!). There will be pretzels/nuts/etc for
those just wishing to nibble. Note that the GAMH has been very
supportive of this benefit, and have offered us a small refund of some
of the event fees if the bar and kitchen meet a minimum, so eating and
drinking are yet another way for you to benefit the CRF. Enjoy!

Sponsors:
	Our corporate sponsors will have some materials for attendees and
there may be some job recruiters, so if you need a job, bring a resume
and/or card.

CryptoRights Memberships:
	Please sign up to be a CRF member at our membership table! For a mere
$20, you get a one-year CRF membership and a cool t-shirt! Such a
deal!

Backrubs:
	Lile Elam of Art.net will be setting up a place for people to give
each other backrubs. RSA employees get preferential treatment!

==

"The Party Line"
A few comments from the CryptoRights Foundation on why we're having
this event...

The last of the Big Crypto Patents --the RSA algorithm-- will
officially expire and enter the Public Domain on 20 September 2000 (at
midnight local time), two decades after its original discovery and
after 17 years of fun with royalties.

Over the years, RSA Security Inc often made the algorithm free for use
by academics and non-profits, so it's fair to say that most of the
patent's impact over the years has been in the commercial sector, but
that has had an impact on public domain open source freeware since
many freeware crypto products are funded by commercial development.

On the other hand, as Whit Diffie and I both argued at a recent BayFF
meeting, the RSA patent may even have pushed people to form groups
like the Cypherpunks, the EFF and the CRF (a good thing for everyone),
as well as freeware products like PGP (via MIT). Nevertheless, once
it's entirely public property again, everyone in the US will soon be
able to use the RSA algorithm as freely as others have been able to
around the world for years. Whether you consider this passing to be as
symbolic as a press release, or a major milestone for the crypto
community, it could lead to brilliant new work by US security
professionals. Free to implement the raw mathematical algorithm in the
open so that their work is fully trustable, rather than using a
proprietary library designed by others, we should see new capabilities
brought forth soon that can benefit non-commercial users.

Many have been talking for some time about having a party to mark the
end of this era. Some of us also feel it's also time to look to the
future, and to discuss what we'll do over the next 20 years to let
bygones be bygones and focus on putting crypto to use in the pursuit
of loftier goals. We're not about complaining about the past, we're
about working on the future, and we know that everyone will need
secure, authenticated communications and data storage if the world is
to move closer to universal representative government.

The CryptoRights Foundation was founded on a few important principles.
One principle we believe in is that human rights workers should have
access to the strongest security tools as they enter dangerous areas
to document Crimes against Humanity. We also believe that security
researchers should have the Freedom to openly research and develop
security algorithms and tools without interference from external
organizations. Finally, we believe that both groups should cooperate
as much as possible to protect each others' freedoms.

This is why we thought the RSA patent expiration would be an ideal
opportunity to grow support for some of our current projects and to
get our message across. By bringing together all of the different
groups who were planning to have a party anyway, we can discuss common
visions. We hope you'll come and join all of the wonderful people and
organizations and generous sponsors who plan to celebrate the next
twenty years of working together!

   --Dave Del Torto
      founder, CryptoRights

Some Interesting URLs:


http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn10=US04405829
	(the RSA patent)
http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/faq/6-3-1.html
	(RSA's FAQ on the patent expiration)
http://www.rsasecurity.com/news/pr/000906-1.html
	(RSA's recent Press Release on the patent)

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--

Very Special Thanks!
Lots of nice people contributed their efforts to this event, and we'd
like to thank a few of them here (if we left you out, please accept
our apologies!):

Tim Dierks, Jessica Watt & the human beings at Certicom -- Chris
DiBona, Rick Moen, Joseph Z & the human beings at VA Linux -- Ian
Goldberg of PAIP International -- Sameer Parekh of CryptoRights and
BPM International -- John Gilmore, Cindy Cohn, Patrick Norager,
Deborah Pierce, Katina Bishop & Stanton McCandlish at the EFF -- Paul
Holman, Kristen Tsolis & the Shmoo Group -- Rodney Thayer at
KnownSafe, Inc -- Len Sassaman at MelonTraffickers and Phil Zimmermann
for the new/improved Group Keysigning Protocol -- Bill Stewart, the
Meetingpunks Planners & the dozens of Cypherpunks for their many good
works over the years -- Randi M Chiffre & Alan J Lansing of the Secret
Order of Former Primes -- Gwen Hastings for the many person-hours of
time and talent on CRF technical projects -- Robert Guerra of
CryptoRights Canada for so many things we can't even list them here --
David Chaum for keynoting and bringing a secret to reveal -- Patrick
Ball at AAAS for inspiration and years of hard work in the trenches
all around the world -- and last but certainly not least, Tony
Caparelli, Andrea Crittenden & the whole GAMH Crew for having us into
their house.