A Golden Opportunity

Cypherpunks,

It seems to me that we have a golden opportunity to apply our crypto
know-how, and our special perspective, to truly important issues.

In recent days we have seen on our own list commments from folks from
Netscape--surely a major players in whatever's coming--and from
attendees at the recent IETF meeting (that stuff is Acronym City to
me, so I stay out of the debate). And contributions from Phil
Zimmermann, Bruce Schneier, Steven Levy, and the like.


"Can't we all just get along?" is a much-laughed-at slogan, but it
seems to apply here. We have a golden opportunity to influence the
Net of the future, surely a good thing. (And I haven't even mentioned
the Cypherpunks connections to digital cash of various flavors.)

I understand that this list is no substitute for things like the
recently-occurring IETF conference (or whatever it was), but it seems
unproductive to be arguing here. (Argument can be good, of course.
Amanda Walker _started_ the argument, but the resulting debate has
been illuminating, so I think the outcome of the argument has been
generally good.)

I suppose what I'm suggesting is that we treat the confluence of
influntial people here as a good opportunity to debate the future. We
probably can't debate fine points in great detail--the list just can't
support the passing of detailed specs back and forth--but I think many
of us are willing to put up with some acronyms in exchange for you
putting up with our non-IETF comments (:-}).

The future Net is now being architected. What better time for
Cypherpunks to apply their various views?

--Tim May


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Timothy C. May writes
> In recent days we have seen on our own list commments from folks from
> Netscape--surely a major players in whatever's coming--and from
> attendees at the recent IETF meeting (that stuff is Acronym City to
> me, so I stay out of the debate). And contributions from Phil
> Zimmermann, Bruce Schneier, Steven Levy, and the like.
> 
> 
> "Can't we all just get along?" is a much-laughed-at slogan, but it
> seems to apply here. We have a golden opportunity to influence the
> Net of the future, surely a good thing. (And I haven't even mentioned
> the Cypherpunks connections to digital cash of various flavors.)

It seems that Perry and other are flaming Netscape for doing things
their own way.

Yes, Netscape have made a lot fuckups.  But they are out there
bringing really cool crypto to the masses.

First guy on the block always does a lot of dumb fuckups.

That is what version 2.0 is for.

Yes, and all the blunders that appear in version 0.99 are
really gross incredibly stupid blunders.

We should know.  Our prerelease versions of everything we
have created have always been full of incredibly stupid
blunders.

That is the nature of programming.  Let he who is without
sin cast the first stone.



-- 
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We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@netcom.com