Seth Finkelstein, reluctant cypherpunk?

[Sandy Sandfort]

Declan and Jim both seemed to have missed the point about Cypherpunks.  I've
attended physical meetings, off and on, since meeting #2 or #3 in the Bay
Area.

I'm not uncomfortable being called--or calling myself--a libertarian, but
one of the first things that the meetings revealed was that we had attendees
from all corners of the political arena.  And as a result, we soon saw that
nothing would ever get discussed--much less done--if we focused on our
political DIFFERENCES instead of our community of interest.

What is that community of interest?  It is the fight for privacy, against
those who would deny it to us, primarily through technological (as opposed
to political) means.  As long as we all kept our eyes on that prize, we had
no problem getting along.  When we got diverted into other areas of
politics/philosophy we ended up accomplishing nothing.

So, do the participants of this list wish to actually get something done
with regard to securing privacy, or shall we just spin our wheels in
internecine warfare?


 S a n d y