A Volunteer in a Suit Has Appeared!

I am pleased to announce that the Search Committee has found an Executive
Director for the newly renamed "Privacy Institute." He will serve as both
manager and as external spokesman for the Institute.

We searched for a respectable person, preferably middle-aged, who knew how
to communicate with bureaucrats and was prepared to relocate to the
Washington, D.C. area to act as our official lobbyist (the matter of his
compensation will be dealt with in a later memo, one which also explains
our dues structure. membership grades, and official bylaws).

Our candidate is an active poster in sci.crypt, is well-known to the Net,
and yet has strong connections with the Washington bureaucracy.

We feel he will do much to project a more proper, even anal, image of our
group. We hope his appointment as Executive Director, The Privacy
Institute, will go a long way toward improving the image we developed
during our first phase of existence when we were known by the c-word name.

Our new Director intends to immediately correct many of the wrongs he sees.


Without further ado, here is his name:


David Sternlight


I hope you'll all join me in welcoming Sternie, or Sterno, as his friends
call him, to the Privacy Institute.


-Tim May, Recording Secretary, The Privacy Institute ("Don't call us
Cypherpunks!")



(The preceeding spoof was brought to you as a public service.)

I wonder, Tim, why you bother to wear clothes at all. After all, they
are merely attempts by conservative people to make you fit into a
conventional mold. Indeed, why speak in english? Why not invent your
own language that no one else understands? After all, using the same
language that other people do is a callow and conformist act.

In fact, why not just go to the top of a giant tower and get publicity
for us by shooting random passers by? After all, as you've noted,
there is no such thing as "bad publicity". I assure you that you will
be covered by thousands of times more TV and radio stations for such
an act.

I've watched the Libertarian Party self destruct because many
activists are such fools that they can't make a distinction between
whats important and random rebellion for the sake of rebellion. People
will refuse to be polite, refuse to phrase their arguments
comprehensably, refuse to be nice to reporters, and refuse to appear
to be reasonable or even rational, and then later on they wonder why
it is that everyone makes fun of them and no one listens.

Our goal is not to maintain use of the word "cypherpunks". Nor is our
goal to change the fashion industry. Our goal is privacy.

Tim agreed in his reply to my message with virtually every substantive
point that I made. None the less, he makes fun of my comments. He
agrees that people do judge on appearances. He agrees that the radical
protest movements of the 1960s were largely failures. Yet he wants us
to appear unreasonable, and he wants us to emulate these failures.

Tim has reacted with extreme vehemence to the minor question of our
name. Its a small thing to us personally -- but it could help advance
our goals. I can only conclude that since Tim more or less admits that
he's wrong but still insists on his position that he is not acting on
the basis of rational motivations.

I'll repeat -- this is not a fight that we can afford to lose. Why
machine gun ourselves in the feet?


Perry


Timothy C. May says:
> 
> I am pleased to announce that the Search Committee has found an Executive
> Director for the newly renamed "Privacy Institute." He will serve as both
> manager and as external spokesman for the Institute.
> 
> We searched for a respectable person, preferably middle-aged, who knew how
> to communicate with bureaucrats and was prepared to relocate to the
> Washington, D.C. area to act as our official lobbyist (the matter of his
> compensation will be dealt with in a later memo, one which also explains
> our dues structure. membership grades, and official bylaws).
> 
> Our candidate is an active poster in sci.crypt, is well-known to the Net,
> and yet has strong connections with the Washington bureaucracy.
> 
> We feel he will do much to project a more proper, even anal, image of our
> group. We hope his appointment as Executive Director, The Privacy
> Institute, will go a long way toward improving the image we developed
> during our first phase of existence when we were known by the c-word name.
> 
> Our new Director intends to immediately correct many of the wrongs he sees.
> 
> 
> Without further ado, here is his name:
> 
> 
> David Sternlight
> 
> 
> I hope you'll all join me in welcoming Sternie, or Sterno, as his friends
> call him, to the Privacy Institute.
> 
> 
> -Tim May, Recording Secretary, The Privacy Institute ("Don't call us
> Cypherpunks!")
> 
> 
> 
> (The preceeding spoof was brought to you as a public service.)
>

Lighten up, Perry! My comments in my lighthearted "A Volunteer Suit
Has Appeared" were not directed at you or your position. After all, I
was the one who first mentioned "suits," so my comments were not
targeted at you use of the term.

> In fact, why not just go to the top of a giant tower and get publicity
> for us by shooting random passers by? After all, as you've noted,
> there is no such thing as "bad publicity". I assure you that you will
> be covered by thousands of times more TV and radio stations for such
> an act.

Perry, Perry, Perry! Please, you're taking my comments and
extrapolating them to absurd levels. Is this what you call being
reasonable? I haven't said that *anything* goes, rather, I've
said that the slightly outre image of our group is not ipso facto a
bad thing. But I don't want your time or my time or the list's time
this way.


> Tim agreed in his reply to my message with virtually every substantive
> point that I made. None the less, he makes fun of my comments. He
> agrees that people do judge on appearances. He agrees that the radical
> protest movements of the 1960s were largely failures. Yet he wants us
> to appear unreasonable, and he wants us to emulate these failures.

Again, not true. 

> Tim has reacted with extreme vehemence to the minor question of our
> name. Its a small thing to us personally -- but it could help advance
> our goals. I can only conclude that since Tim more or less admits that
> he's wrong but still insists on his position that he is not acting on
> the basis of rational motivations.

??????

All I can say is that I hope Perry cools off a bit. While the Clipper
Chip is indeed a serious and dismal matter, I see no call for such
anger and charges that I've admitted I'm wrong, that I want our
efforts to fail, that I want us to appear unreasonable, and that I am
"not acting on the basis of rational motivations."

It's clear Perry doesn't like the name of our group. Repeating this
over and over again does not seem to be all that produtive.

And the issues go beyond that of the mere name, which is a relatively
minor issue. My post about "respectability" yesterday had much more to
do with addressing the calls by some that our agenda be changed (e.g.,
reducing discussion of crypto anarchy, of guerilla distribution of
software, of offshore remailers, of digital money, of money
laundering, and the like), that we deemphasize the "crypto rebel"
aspects and instead adopt a more mainstream line.

It's clear that some are uncomfortable with these crypto rebel issues,
these discussions on the list, and the possible repercussions. Well,
these are the topics that got us started, and the latest Clipper Chip
is no reason for us to turn into a carbon copy of the CPSR, EFF, and
ACLU.

Nor is it a reason to lose our sense of humor about things.


-Tim May

P.S. I'm quite serious that my little joke about Sternlight was not
directed at Perry personally. I had already responded at length, and
quite reasonably (I thought) to his comments. The Sternlight point
came as I was reading Sternie's posts in sci.crypt and realized that
what he (Sternlight) seems to want more than anything else is to be
the "voice of reason" in the crypto debate. Hence my satire.

If I'd wanted to satirize Perry, which I can't honestly say I've
wanted to do, I'd've used some kind of material from him, or his kind
of words. 

Cheers.

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.

Sorry, gang, but I just can't let this one pass without commenting:

Perry Metzger writes:

> I've watched the Libertarian Party self destruct because many
> activists are such fools that they can't make a distinction between
> whats important and random rebellion for the sake of rebellion. People
> will refuse to be polite, refuse to phrase their arguments
> comprehensably, refuse to be nice to reporters, and refuse to appear
> to be reasonable or even rational, and then later on they wonder why
> it is that everyone makes fun of them and no one listens.

Speaking for myself, I've been *very* polite to reporters. I can only
hope Perry is speculating about some Cypherpunks I haven't heard
about. John Gilmore, Eric Hughes, myself, and many other members of
the list have been quite reasonable, quite articulate, and quite
"nice" in our comments to reporters.

I hosted Kevin Kelly, Steven Levy, and Julian Dibbell each for several
hours, at their request, at my home in Aptos. These were for the
various pieces coming out in their publications. I answered their
questions, outlined the issues of privacy and crypto as I saw them,
explained the workings of new protocols, and so on.

Some of them showed up at our meetings, where they were well-treated.
The Levy piece is already out, in "Wired," and I've seen the draft of
Kelly's piece coming out soon in "Whole Earth Review." Neither paint
us as Texas Tower whackos nor as blue-sky dreamers. These journalists
are very well-versed in the issues. 

Julian Dibbell's forthcoming piece I haven't seen, but I doubt it will
be a hatchet job or otherwise treat us as crazies.

I think this qualifies as being nice and reasonable to reporters.

Note: I did not talk to John Markoff this time around, but I have in
the past. My understanding is that others talked to him.


Cheers.

-Tim May