End of a cypherpunk era?

[Eric Cordian]

Someone writes:

> > I never saw this kind of thing as being central to the cypherpunk
> > concept. In fact, to me it seems like the wrong direction to go. The
> > point of being a cypherpunk is to live in cypherspace, the mythical land
> > where online interactions dominate and we can use information theory and
> > mathematics to protect ourselves. Of course, cypherspace is inevitably
> > grounded in the physical world, so we have to use anonymous remailers
> > and proxies to achieve our goals.

This seems reasonable.  It seems the path of least resistance here, is to 
let ones meatspace identity fly under the radar, and attract no attention 
to itself, while ones cypherpunkish persona is fighting injustice and 
sovereign state arrogance by selling really great tech to the needy and 
wiring large satchels of money between continents in encrypted untraceable 
transactions.

I would think the last thing one would wish do to in order to further that 
goal, is to have ones meatspace identity publicly thumb its nose at the 
government, and make itself a target for retaliation.

Loudly renouncing ones citizenship is a lot less effective in destroying 
the infrastructure of oppression, than anonymously telling everyone in the 
world how they can make a 20 megaton thermonuclear explosion working for a 
few years in their basement using only non-radioactive materials that can 
never be made illegal to own.

There are two types of societies in the world.  Those in which everyone 
has a deadly weapon that can never be take away, and against which there 
is no defense.  And those in which everyone has an inpenetrable shield 
that can never be taken away, and against which no weapon is effective.

Dolphins are an example of the former.  Usenet is an example of the 
latter.  Dolphins are polite, friendly, and respectful of eachother, and 
no group of dolphins can ever form a government to oppress the rest of 
them.  

We should try to be more like dolphins in cypherspace, while attracting as 
little attention to ourselves in other places.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"