'robert' and his 'hipcrime' web site

Have you considered who is funding this "hipcrime" site?  Web sites aren't
terribly expensive these days, but someone paid at least a few hundred
dollars in set-up fees for this.  Now, I realize that most artists really
just like to draw, and will spend money on their art projects without
expecting any kind of benefit; that is not unusual.  What is unusual is
the disclaimer and its corporate mentailty, and the "anarchist info".

It's obvious that this guy's true passion is fractals and raytracing.  
He threw in some bomb-making stuff, but he scanned it out of a book and
probably never tried it.  Compared to the rest of the site, it looks like
an afterthought.  Someone who was really interested in chemistry would
have taken the time to retype the info and add their own comments.  He
had a reason to have some "anarchist" info on there but he's not really
interested in it.  So basically this guy is a mathematician/artist trying
to pretend he's an anarchist.

Same goes for the remailers.  He claims he likes remailers and anonymity,
but he's lying.  Anyone who really liked remailers/anonymity/privacy would
have pages and pages about how to use remailers, and why privacy is a good
thing.  He has a reason he needs to be anonymous, but it's not because
he supports privacy.  He publishes a PGP key, because he wants to pretend
he's an anarchist, and Louis Freeh told him that all evil terrorist
organizations use PGP.  But he doesn't like PGP, he doesn't advocate PGP,
and he doesn't tell you where to get PGP.

So we have a guy, probably with an education in mathematics, who likes
abstract art.  Not what would generally be considered a political figure.
But there's something else there - something that doesn't want to be seen,
something that is very strongly law&order, something that doesn't
understand the anarchy of the net, and fears it.  Something that has the
money to fund lots of little pet projects.  Is robert@precipice.v-site.net
just a useful idiot who found someone who will fund his fractal creations?
Or is he a willing participant?  I guess it doesn't matter really.

Someone here doesn't like us... didn't like us before Hipcrime went online,
and still doesn't like us.  But now at least he's got our attention.

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On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote:

> Have you considered who is funding this "hipcrime" site?  Web sites aren't
> 
> So we have a guy, probably with an education in mathematics, who likes
> abstract art.  Not what would generally be considered a political figure.
> But there's something else there - something that doesn't want to be seen,
> something that is very strongly law&order, something that doesn't
> understand the anarchy of the net, and fears it.  Something that has the
> money to fund lots of little pet projects.  Is robert@precipice.v-site.net
> just a useful idiot who found someone who will fund his fractal creations?
> Or is he a willing participant?  I guess it doesn't matter really.

Can you say, "COINTELPRO"? Howzabout "FBI"?

Andy Dustman / Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Design / UGA
===== For PGP public key:  finger andy@neptune.chem.uga.edu | pgp -fka =====
Sure, the Telecomm Act will create jobs: 100,000 new thought-cops on the net
http://charon.chem.uga.edu/~andy    mailto:andy@CCMSD.chem.uga.edu    <}+++<



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On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote:

> Have you considered who is funding this "hipcrime" site?  Web sites aren't
> terribly expensive these days, but someone paid at least a few hundred
> dollars in set-up fees for this.

A few hundred dollars?  Probably not.  There's the domain name 
registration (perhaps, depending on when the name was registered -- I 
don't care enough to find out), and maybe $20/month to some other guy.  
Perhaps more, but not necessarily.

> It's obvious that this guy's true passion is fractals and raytracing.  
> He threw in some bomb-making stuff, but he scanned it out of a book and
> probably never tried it.  Compared to the rest of the site, it looks like
> an afterthought.  Someone who was really interested in chemistry would
> have taken the time to retype the info and add their own comments.  He
> had a reason to have some "anarchist" info on there but he's not really
> interested in it.  So basically this guy is a mathematician/artist trying
> to pretend he's an anarchist.

Like... oh... I dunno... una-something... :-)  To be an "anarchist" has 
nothing to do with violence, necessarily, though.  Ghandi was an 
anarchist, of course, as are many other people (such as myself) who 
disclaim violence as a tactic.

> So we have a guy, probably with an education in mathematics, who likes
> abstract art.  Not what would generally be considered a political figure.
> But there's something else there - something that doesn't want to be seen,
> something that is very strongly law&order, something that doesn't
> understand the anarchy of the net, and fears it.

Disagree strongly.  Are you aware of the source of the name 'hipcrime'?  
It's from John Brunner's novel _Stand_On_Zanzibar_ (A _great_ book, btw), 
and describes a cynical, hipster-societal dropout philosophy (or at least 
style) that is inclined to look at people as no more than sheep. Applying 
this to the 'net populace is perhaps (I hesitate somewhat to apply the 
term) misanthropic, but not necessarily law & order.  Again, unabomber 
comparisons are obvious.

Still, like computer virii, the internet worm, all the promised 
intelligent agents and nano-mites we've been promised (which the hipcrime 
bot could certainly be seen as another precursor of, at least as far as 
intelligent agents go), there's a certain abstract beauty to the scheme, 
and a certain pathos.  I'm reminded of the limits to growth studies which 
showed islands exceed their capacity to carry a particular species, and 
the stunning sudden decline soon after.  (Come to think of it, that 
analogy might cover the remailer network)

----------
Jon Lasser (410)532-7138                         - Obscenity  is a crutch  for
jlasser@rwd.goucher.edu                            inarticulate motherfuckers.
http://www.goucher.edu/~jlasser/
Finger for PGP key (1024/EC001E4D)               - Fuck the CDA.

Moltar Ramone <jlasser@rwd.goucher.edu> wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote:
[snip]
> > So basically this guy is a mathematician/artist trying
> > to pretend he's an anarchist.
> 
> Like... oh... I dunno... una-something... :-)  To be an "anarchist" has 
> nothing to do with violence, necessarily, though.  Ghandi was an 
> anarchist, of course, as are many other people (such as myself) who 
> disclaim violence as a tactic.
> 
> > So we have a guy, probably with an education in mathematics, who likes
> > abstract art.  Not what would generally be considered a political figure.
> > But there's something else there - something that doesn't want to be seen,
> > something that is very strongly law&order, something that doesn't
> > understand the anarchy of the net, and fears it.
> 
> Disagree strongly.  Are you aware of the source of the name 'hipcrime'?  
> It's from John Brunner's novel _Stand_On_Zanzibar_ (A _great_ book, btw), 
> and describes a cynical, hipster-societal dropout philosophy (or at least 
> style) that is inclined to look at people as no more than sheep. Applying 
> this to the 'net populace is perhaps (I hesitate somewhat to apply the 
> term) misanthropic, but not necessarily law & order.  Again, unabomber 
> comparisons are obvious.

I'm not so sure about that.  I suspect in Kaczynski's case it was attention
deficit disorder and/or severe depression that drove him out into the woods
where no one would bother him - he didn't like interruptions and shunned
visitors.  Kaczynski blamed "leftists" and "technologists" for his ills and
primarally (though not exclusively) took out his rage on them.

This guy is just plain arrogent.  He believes he's right, and if you don't
agree with him and let him do whatever he wants, then to him you are
unimportant scum.  ("weak-minded soul" to quote him directly.)

What I don't understand is, why he bothered attacking the remailers.  Since
he obviously knows how to forge mail headers and write unix cgi scripts,
and he wasn't trying to conceal the source address, using the remailers
did him no good.  Also, he could have just downloaded the remailer software
and run it.  So maybe he really is Co$...