Dominating public debate (Was: Cypherpunks as lobbying/propaga

While I agree that the cypherpunk list is too fragmented and informal to
pass off as a coherent lobbying group, there remains a very deep need to get
information out to the "general public" (read as, "people who might have
heard about something the NSA is doing, but don't quite remember what....")

Lets face it.  For all the successful lobbying EFF and CSPR and individuals
have done, upwards of 75% of the population won't recognize the word Clipper.
This needs to change, since the NSA depends on the masses to be uninformed
for Clipper to become reality.  Press kits and making the cypherpunk label
known are steps in the right direction, but we need to go more directly to
the people.  And sadly, probably the most successful way to stimulate debate
and educate in the United States is best demonstrated by...

"Harry and Louise"

You know, that annoying commercial the insurance industry ran?  That Bill
was concerned enough about to parody?  It's time the Clipper debate got
one too.  Mind you, we'd keep ours factual and non-sensational, but interesting
enough to catch the eye of Joe and Mary Blow at the dinner table.

An interesting concept: it would be (to my knowledge) the first time a grass
roots campaign went prime-time.  Problem is, getting airtime over the hours
our target audience is likely to be watching isn't cheap.  But hey, the
software industry hates this as much as cypherpunks do.  Pass the hat.  And
for that matter, if you think you're concerned enough to read this list,
chip in $20 bucks to the currently non-existant (EFF?  CSPR?  Cypherpunk
Nonproft Foundation for Truth?) Fund for Commercials.  You want to get
attention?  THAT'S the way you do it in the US.  It's unfortunate, but if you
want to stop Big Brother, you're going to have to play with the big boys by
their rules: who dominates public debate wins, not who's right.  And the
anti-Clipper movement needs to quit the discussion-group mode and move into
action.  Very, very soon.

Comments encouraged.

Robert Hoff.

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Robert Michael Hoff writes:

> While I agree that the cypherpunk list is too fragmented and informal to
> pass off as a coherent lobbying group, there remains a very deep need to get
> information out to the "general public" (read as, "people who might have
> heard about something the NSA is doing, but don't quite remember what....")
> 
> Lets face it.  For all the successful lobbying EFF and CSPR and individuals
> have done, upwards of 75% of the population won't recognize the word Clipper.
> This needs to change, since the NSA depends on the masses to be uninformed
> for Clipper to become reality.  Press kits and making the cypherpunk label
> known are steps in the right direction, but we need to go more directly to
> the people.  And sadly, probably the most successful way to stimulate debate
> and educate in the United States is best demonstrated by...

I wish you luck on your creation of this public relations campaign,
the financing and production of a "Harry and Louise" (??...I never saw
it) television campaign, etc.

Just don't call your campaign "Cypherpunks," as you don't speak for
me.

I'm not trying to sound snippy and testy here. If you and the others
who are advocating an aggressive media and public education campaign
can raise the money, get the stuff produced, and so forth, then more
power to you.

But it ain't a Cypherpunks thing. So don't call it that. Cypherpunks
write code, as Eric Hughes says. Or as Phil Karn has expanded on
wonderfully: "Don't get mad, get even--write code."

As we've discussed, this doesn't mean that writing C or Perl is the
only valid thing to do, or that all Cypherpunks activity revolves
around this. Rather, it recogizes that fact that the coming changes
that center around strong crypto will be most influenced by actual
tools, capabilities, digital banks, message pools, reputation servers,
data havens, and the like, more so than by "public opinion." And
several groups _already_ exist to lobby, located in Washington and
staffed by lawyers, media relations people, fund-raisers, etc. (A new
one, "EPIC," just got launched with much hoopla this past week.)

They have what we don't have: a centralized band of "public policy"
types, a budget, offices, etc. And we have what they _don't_ have:
hackers and crypto experts, subversive folks willing to violate export
laws, guerilla activists, etc. But you knew that.

> "Harry and Louise"
> 
> You know, that annoying commercial the insurance industry ran?  That Bill
> was concerned enough about to parody?  It's time the Clipper debate got
> one too.  Mind you, we'd keep ours factual and non-sensational, but interesting
> enough to catch the eye of Joe and Mary Blow at the dinner table.

This comes up every few months. Pray tell, just where will the
multi-million dollar budget to finance this series of ads come from?
(The last such "proposal" was that the Cyherpunks buy a series of
30-minute "infomercials" to educate the public. Several minor flaws:

a. such infomercials would be tuned-out by 97% of the population
("Look, Marge, it's a commercial about the dangers of Capstone and the
benefits of free use of RSA and Diffie-Hellman key exchange!")

(the subject is mostly too complicated for public debate, except at
the level of public opinion about the overall concept, where the
Time/CNN already has us way out ahead at 80% opposed to Clipper.)

b. call up a few t.v. shows and find out the ad rates, locally and
nationally. Then you'll see why the insurance business can run ads
like this, but a band of Cypherpunks can't. (Unless you and your
friends plan to pay for it yourselves. And don't make vague noises
about "fund-raisers.")

c. Clipper is primarily and Executive Branch issue. Doesn't mean it
won't be derailed, and our views are helping in some small way. But
it's not something that has to pass through Congress. (Digital
Telephony is another matter.)

d. whatever we spend, proponents can also spend. And both NSA and AT&T
have deep pockets (I've never seen an NSA ad, but they can funnel the
money into other places).

e. finally, it *still* wouldn't be a Cypherpunks thing....we have no
voting system, no rulers, no bylaws, no nothing.

> their rules: who dominates public debate wins, not who's right.  And the
> anti-Clipper movement needs to quit the discussion-group mode and move into
> action.  Very, very soon.

Yeah, work on code!

A better use of some raised cash--which you are berating us for not
raising--would be to finance Phil Zimmermann's "Pretty Good Voice
Privacy," or the similar efforts of others (described here in several
recent posts).

The technological leverage obtainable this way is what has made the
current strong crypto issue arise. This is the stunning power of
hackers and Samizdat publishers and offshore financial markets...it
changes the equation.

It ain't politics as usual.

--Tim May





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<In mail Timothy C. May said:>
> 
> Just don't call your campaign "Cypherpunks," as you don't speak for
> me.

  The US Government doesn't speak for me on the "Bosnia thing", but
  they say "America's stance is".  I am a member of America, just as
  we are members of cypherpunks.  You didn't vote for a "lobbyist"
  to represent you, but then again, I didn't vote for Bill Clinton to
  represent me. (Yes, I did vote against him).

> I'm not trying to sound snippy and testy here. If you and the others
> who are advocating an aggressive media and public education campaign
> can raise the money, get the stuff produced, and so forth, then more
> power to you.

   Ditto regarding this reply.  No ill intentions, just expressing
   another point of view.

> But it ain't a Cypherpunks thing. So don't call it that. Cypherpunks
> write code, as Eric Hughes says. Or as Phil Karn has expanded on
> wonderfully: "Don't get mad, get even--write code."

	How did Eric Hughes and Phil Karn get to speak the immortal words
	that DO represent the entire group?  Even if they run machines
	that run the mail list, it doesn't make them Cypherpunk Spokespeople,
	only the guy with a spare computer.  [No offense meant to those who
	work hard to give us what we have.  Your efforts ARE appreciated.]

[Some very good comments about why infomercials won't work deleted...]

> e. finally, it *still* wouldn't be a Cypherpunks thing....we have no
> voting system, no rulers, no bylaws, no nothing.

	The term Cypherpunks is amorphous, thus subject to use and abuse
	by the masses.  When people like Jeff Davis and Phill Zimmermann
	say "The cypherpunks are generally opposed to Clipper" it makes us
	an "organization" which, like it or not, does have representatives
	and agendas.  Unfortunately, perception defines reality.  If we
	had a "What Cypherpunks Are" document people would realize that
	whatever is said of the group is a generalization.

> A better use of some raised cash--which you are berating us for not
> raising--would be to finance Phil Zimmermann's "Pretty Good Voice
> Privacy," or the similar efforts of others (described here in several
> recent posts).

	Agreed.  Money can be better used elsewhere, IMO, but if folks
	do end up in the public eye it would be nice to have some
	concrete definitions the public can use to judge the comments
	made by those high-visibility people.

    Take care,
	   Jim
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>   How did Eric Hughes and Phil Karn get to speak the immortal words
>   that DO represent the entire group?  

When did this happen?  You should tell me, I'd like to know.

I represent myself as cypherpunks founder, or cypherpunks list
maintainer.

>   Agreed.  Money can be better used elsewhere, IMO, but if folks
>   do end up in the public eye it would be nice to have some
>   concrete definitions the public can use to judge the comments
>   made by those high-visibility people.

cypherpunks: (n) an Internet mailing list about implementations of
cryptography.  Cypherpunks is a venue for those who believe in the
free and widespread use of cryptography; it focuses especially on the
social effects of such deployment.

Eric