Jude Milhon in WIRED

WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter
member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know there
_was_ a charter. The interview as such is mainly about why "girls _need_
modems."



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Rishab Aiyer Ghosh                                "In between the breaths is
rishab@dxm.ernet.in                                  the space where we live"
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On Sun, 15 Jan 1995 rishab@dxm.ernet.in wrote:

> WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter
> member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know there
> _was_ a charter. The interview as such is mainly about why "girls _need_
> modems."

WiReD. What a waste of pulp; worse, what a waste of potential. A magazine 
that could have held the hands of aol novices and led them into the real 
net.world, and promoted freenets, and demonstrated the need for 
cryptosystems, and challenged the minds of net citizens decided to take 
the low road and become "USA Today" (for cypherpunks abroad, "USA-T" is a 
`newspaper' that looks like a big comic book, and doesn't trouble its 
readers with many syllables ... rather like Prodigy ...).

==a.j.==

--
  "The large print giveth and the small print taketh away." - Tom Waits

rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:
> WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter
> member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know there
> _was_ a charter.

Or a Jude Milhon, for that matter. Another example of the continuing
decay of a once proud magazine...

Perry

On Sun, 15 Jan 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> 
> rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:
> > WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter
> > member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know there
> > _was_ a charter.
> 
> Or a Jude Milhon, for that matter. Another example of the continuing
> decay of a once proud magazine...
>
Uhm, this is funny 8)

Jude is the patron saint of a losing battle, the one to keep the Internet 
free, and to fuck with media as much as possible when it brings fun.  And 
the gravy whick dominatrix, all rolled into a few.

she's also a freind so watch it punk 8)

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:
> > WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter
> > member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know there
> > _was_ a charter.
> 
> Or a Jude Milhon, for that matter. Another example of the continuing
> decay of a once proud magazine...

I'm not sure what Perry's not having heard of Jude Milhon is supposed
to mean, or how "Wired" interviewing her is "another example of the
continuing decay," etc.

In any case, Jude Milhon has been active in the hacker-writer
community, going back to the 1970s. Steven Levy's "Hackers" has
several pages on her role in various things happening in the Lee
Felsenstein circle of folks (there may be some of you who have no idea
who Lee is....I can only hope that when you find interviews with him
you not assume decay is occurring). More recently she was an editor at
"Mondo 2000" and has had various connections to Cypherpunks.

Jude was indeed the coiner of the "cypherpunk" term, and was at most of
the early meetings, for at least the first year. (My FAQ will have
more information on how Jude came to think of the name and whatnot.)

She's not presently subscribed and hence can't speak up in this
strange matter of how an interview with her implies a magazine is in
decay.

(I'm hoping this is not what Perry really meant, but I can't see any
other interpretations based on what I quoted above.)

I just don't think Jude deserves this kind of casual trashing. 

While I haven't been reading "Mondo" regularly for a couple of years,
and while I'm getting bored with "Wired," this doesn't mean that
people being interviewed deserve trashing. (Indeed, the "bleeding
edge" trendiness of "Wired," say, means that nearly anything once
"wired" is fated to be marked as "tired" by the "stimulate me!"
Starbucks crowd of techno-yuppies. Unlike a more staid journal, like
"Nature" or "The Economist," as examples, trendy techno-style mags
like "Wired," "Spin," "boing boing," "Future Sex," and a hundred other
wirehead variants of "Vogue" and "People" will appeal precisely to the
style mavens who so fickly announce what is trendy and what is not.

Anyone who professes to be "disappointed" by "Wired" was clearly taken
in by their hype.

(For what it's worth, I still enjoy flipping through the pages, often
finding one or two items that spark my thinking. No, much of it is
junk. So what else is new?)

Oh, and on Rishab's original point about "charter members," I took
this in the usual figurative sense. A charter member of the
Cypherpunks is basically just a card-carrying member. (Hint: Find your
own cards.)

--Tim



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Timothy C. May says:
> I'm not sure what Perry's not having heard of Jude Milhon is supposed
> to mean, or how "Wired" interviewing her is "another example of the
> continuing decay," etc.
> 
> In any case, Jude Milhon has been active in the hacker-writer
> community, going back to the 1970s.

Sorry. Everyone seems to be assuring me that I should know her and
that she's a longtime friend of Eric's, but I must admit that I've
no memory of anything she's done. I believe people who say she's the
origin of the term "cypherpunk", but I must admit to still having no
real knowledge of who this person is.

In any case, I apologize for my ignorance and will try be on less of a
hair trigger in the future. However, following a long stream of Wired
interviews of bizarrely marginal community members, I simply assumed
this was Yet Another.

> Anyone who professes to be "disappointed" by "Wired" was clearly taken
> in by their hype.

I'm disappointed by them because they once used to care about getting
facts in articles right and about discussing meaningful issues, and
now they don't. They used to be a cross between the Economist and
Mondo 2000, and now they are just Mondo 2001. When you try to count
inaccuracies on the average page, you run out of interest in
continuing the exercise before you run out of errors. They also used
to have a point of view. They also used to have substantive articles,
and now they have cover stories on "Zippies!"

I'm not renewing my subscription.

Perry

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Sorry. Everyone seems to be assuring me that I should know her and
> that she's a longtime friend of Eric's, but I must admit that I've
> no memory of anything she's done. I believe people who say she's the
> origin of the term "cypherpunk", but I must admit to still having no
> real knowledge of who this person is.
> 
> In any case, I apologize for my ignorance and will try be on less of a
> hair trigger in the future. However, following a long stream of Wired
> interviews of bizarrely marginal community members, I simply assumed
> this was Yet Another.

And I apologize to Perry for not being even more elliptic in my
questioning of his language. It's jus that Jude is pretty well known
out here, at least by the group that was at the early meetings, and
so....

One thing I've found is that the electronic age has made me more
careful about insulting specific people. The Kibo Effect, call it.
(Hi, Kibo!) 

General insults, or political statements, are of course kosher, but
making any kind of snide remarks about Joe Foobar, for example, will
often result in these comments being fed to the at person. (I recently
made some comments here on this list about a public Net person, whom I
do not believe is or was subscribed...a few days later I got a
note from this person objecting to my characterization of his views! I
am assuming someone forwarded the traffic to him.)

So, if I see a "marginal" person interviewed by "Wired," I am
circumspect about commenting on them...they might be on the list, they
might actually be doing something important, etc. (Like that unknown
guy "Andreeson," or somesuch...I don't have any idea what he's done,
and I never heard of him before last year, but all the hype-zines are
putting him on their covers, so he must be doing something interesting
:).) 

Anyway, many of the folks "Wired" and the other hype-zines interview
are indeed strange and marginal. To be expected. There are only so
many of the standard "talking heads" that can be interviewed (the
stand-bys like Engelbart, Nelson, Toffler, Pournelle, etc.).

Frankly, I'd rather see a story on "Zippies," about which I'd heard
nothing substantive before, than Yet Another Ted Nelson Story, about
which I've heard entirely too much over the past decade. (Not to
insult Ted--Hi, Ted!--but there are only so many ways to tell the
Xanadu story...time for new approaches.)

I know some folks in the crypto/PGP community who were quite miffed
that such "marginal" folks as Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, and I were
featured on the cover of "Wired" 1.2 two years ago...they naturally
saw themselves as being more worthy, as perhaps they were....such is
life. The "credit assignment problem" in evolution and genetic
programming remains a tough one.

Finally, "Wired" is still mixing stories about flakes with seminal
articles, such as the one on "FinCEN" a while back. That makes it
still worth looking at, at least to me.


--Tim May


-- 
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Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
                       | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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Timothy C. May says:
> One thing I've found is that the electronic age has made me more
> careful about insulting specific people. The Kibo Effect, call it.
> (Hi, Kibo!) 

I wasn't insulting Jude (whoever she is; I don't know her and have no
reason to have an opinion on her); I was insulting "Wired".

> Frankly, I'd rather see a story on "Zippies," about which I'd heard
> nothing substantive before, than Yet Another Ted Nelson Story, about
> which I've heard entirely too much over the past decade.

On the other hand, "Wired" used to interview people who were fairly
unknown but important -- there are an endless supply of such
people. When was the last time you saw an interview with someone like
Rick Adams, for example? He's not necessarily the *most* important
person on the planet, but being the proprietor of a company that runs
a good fraction of the world's internet connectivity and just got
partially bought by Microsoft, he's pretty important in a lot of ways,
and I legitimately know little about him. How about an article on the
economics of cellphone fraud -- a multi-billion dollar industry
created by the NSA and its desire to stop encryption from being
used. Lots of cool stuff out there to report on -- no need to do
fashion-fluff.

> I know some folks in the crypto/PGP community who were quite miffed
> that such "marginal" folks as Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, and I were
> featured on the cover of "Wired" 1.2 two years ago...

Two years ago, the average article in "Wired" was worth reading --
informative, cutting edge, accurate, and about something
important. Today, the articles are more likely to be about weird
hangers on from the cultural fringes mumbling weird deconstructionist
ravings about obscure topics. I've found an average of only one decent
article per issue lately -- and I have no doubt they'll fix that soon.

Perry

> Anyway, many of the folks "Wired" and the other hype-zines interview
> are indeed strange and marginal. To be expected. There are only so
> many of the standard "talking heads" that can be interviewed (the
> stand-bys like Engelbart, Nelson, Toffler, Pournelle, etc.).
> 
> Frankly, I'd rather see a story on "Zippies," about which I'd heard
> nothing substantive before, than Yet Another Ted Nelson Story, about
> which I've heard entirely too much over the past decade. (Not to
> insult Ted--Hi, Ted!--but there are only so many ways to tell the
> Xanadu story...time for new approaches.)
> 
> I know some folks in the crypto/PGP community who were quite miffed
> that such "marginal" folks as Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, and I were
> featured on the cover of "Wired" 1.2 two years ago...they naturally
> saw themselves as being more worthy, as perhaps they were....such is
> life. The "credit assignment problem" in evolution and genetic
> programming remains a tough one.

I'm not sure that that's the case. Just because you move in dramatically
politically incorrect circles (no insult intended) you may tend to get
interviewed more than, say, I would.  The fact that I might be working on
more important or interesting things is completely irrelevent. 
Cypherpunks is 'hot', so the press goes to who are perceived to be the
'movers and shakers' and they are talked to. The people working behind the
scenes on stuff often are ignored in deference to those who are more
visible.  Again, no insult intended, but I think there's a large measure
of truth in it.  The same people keep getting the press while the larger
bulk of the population gets ignored.  It's also geographically-oriented, 
too - the folks on the West Coast tend to get the majority of the press, 
followed by the East Coast.  Anyone in between is basically ignored.  I 
guess the press thinks that no one outside of Silicon Valley or Boston is 
working on anything of any substance.  Hell, look at Linux - that was 
done by a guy in Finland, and a college student at that.  I'll bet that's 
rather embarassing to the "hot shots" in Cupertino :)
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Ed Carp, N7EKG    			Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com
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Suspect: "Seventy."  -- from the TV show "Cops"

> Jude was indeed the coiner of the "cypherpunk" term, and was at most of
> the early meetings, for at least the first year. (My FAQ will have
> more information on how Jude came to think of the name and whatnot.)

I, for one, would like to see this - I've only been on the list for a bit
over two years, and I'd never heard of Jude, either.
-- 
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Ed Carp [khijol Sysadmin] wrote:
> 
> > Jude was indeed the coiner of the "cypherpunk" term, and was at most of
> > the early meetings, for at least the first year. (My FAQ will have
> > more information on how Jude came to think of the name and whatnot.)
> 
> I, for one, would like to see this - I've only been on the list for a bit
> over two years, and I'd never heard of Jude, either.

It's in the Cyphernomicon FAQ...just grep for it.

--Tim May


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tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
                       | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:

> > rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:
> > > WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter
> > > member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know t
> > > _was_ a charter.
> > 
> > Or a Jude Milhon, for that matter. Another example of the continuing
> > decay of a once proud magazine...
> 
> I'm not sure what Perry's not having heard of Jude Milhon is supposed
> to mean, or how "Wired" interviewing her is "another example of the
> continuing decay," etc.

I suppose I should have elaborated in my original post. Of course I know
of Jude's role in cypherpunk history; in fact I thought it would interest
cpunks to know that she was interviewed. As for the 'charter' - it was 
no doubt WIRED's creative interpretation.

> She's not presently subscribed and hence can't speak up in this
> strange matter of how an interview with her implies a magazine is in
> decay.

Speaking of which, the list membership has hit 640. I'll be posting a
membership profile soon, since it's a year since I saw the one that
got me out of 'lurk mode' when I discovered I was the only cpunk in this
region.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh                                "In between the breaths is
rishab@dxm.ernet.in                                  the space where we live"
rishab@arbornet.org                                        - Lawrence Durrell
Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410  
Voicemail +91 11 3760335                 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com> writes:

> rishab@dxm.ernet.in says:
> > WIRED 3.02 (February) interviews Jude Milhon (St. Jude) who "is a charter
> > member of the cypherpunks - a term that she coined." I didn't even know the
> > _was_ a charter.
> 
> Or a Jude Milhon, for that matter. Another example of the continuing
> decay of a once proud magazine...

Though I don't recall seeing her post to the list, I'll borrow Tim's words 
from the Cyphernomicon:

   2.4.10. "Where did the name 'Cypherpunks' come from?"
           + Jude Milhon, aka St. Jude, then an editor at "Mondo 2000,"
              was at the earliest meetings...she quipped "You guys are
              just a bunch of cypherpunks." The name was adopted
              immediately.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh                                "In between the breaths is
rishab@dxm.ernet.in                                  the space where we live"
rishab@arbornet.org                                        - Lawrence Durrell
Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410  
Voicemail +91 11 3760335                 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA