Laws of mathematics, not of men

[Declan McCullagh]

At 09:37 AM 8/1/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>Exactly so. This list, like so many other lists, is gradually moving 
>toward "public politics" and "the law" as the focus of many members.

More public policy than "public politics," but the general point is true. 
I'm not sure what the reason is. Perhaps a combination of more stuff 
happening by the Feds than, say, eight years ago. It's true we had SJG and 
CDA (well, starting in 1994-1995) and crypto restrictions and CALEA 
(starting in 1994) and Clipper. But that's a pretty short list compared to 
what DC is involved with today.

Also many of the broader cypherpunkly themes have been well thought out and 
well-discussed. Some people have gone on to create companies around these 
ideas; most of those have failed, or at least have not been wildly 
profitable successes. Other cypherpunkly projects, like Freenet, have their 
own lists and networks of programmers, who may not even read cypherpunks. 
Some things have remained constant for the past four years or so: The 
number of remailers, to a first approximation, and the number of years 
before digital cash happens. :)


>We risk becoming just a pale--a very, very pale!--imitation of the 
>Cyberia-L list.

Nah. Cyberia's gone downhill. Folks there have fled to private law lists 
too (I'm on one).

-Declan