Cypherpunks as Philosopher Kings [was permanent invasion of privacy]

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        Currently, I am not sure what the charter of cypherpunks 
    really stands for, if anything.  As it stands, the list has 
    a far more erudite group than the list it probably should be. 
    certainly more privacy and social engineering issues resulting 
    from the deprivation of privacy than code.

        I don't believe Cypherpunks was ever intended to be a technical
    forum; I was not on for the first few months so I missed the 
    formative discussions of the elitist few, most of whom, other than
    founder tcmay, have left for greener pastures. 

        In the beginning years, there was a substantial amount of 
    crypto code, etc. passed around and argued. However, the few of us
    who do code, do not generate enough messages relating to code to 
    warrant a list; therefore the passionate interests which travel 
    as coders' baggage seem to explode and others, some technically
    competent and some not, join the list and the circus goes on.

        Frankly, I have hired and "mind-fucked" (pardon my french, for
    lack of a more descriptive expression) scores of hacker grade
    philosophers.  That is exactly where it runs: they are philosophers
    first and creative coders second. As to their knowledge of philo-
    sophy, and the direction of their creative talents to a logical
    and usable conclusion, they score a fat zero as by and large they 
    are geeks and idealistic social nerds. --hence the need for subtle 
    background manipulation to make these philosopher-coders think your
    design is actually their great philosophic-coder design. 

        Yes, and _never_ assign two of them to the same compartment: 
    the code never works  --absolutely will not share tasks. Common 
    interface boundaries? No problem for their minds, but too 
    creatively selfish to code associative modules.  For that reason 
    alone, I hold C++ in contempt: a black box that is _supposed_to_ 
    to look for 'this' and give you 'that.'  C++ is an ignorant
    managers ultimate wet dream:  "reusable code containers for 
    disposable programmers."  For some reason, Bjorn elucidated a 
    strenuous objection to my statement. <g>

        For what it's worth, the above is my perception of cypherpunks: 
    an interesting collection of philosopher kings, some of whom are
    putting their convictions to the means of thwarting the common 
    enemy.  It is no accident most subscribers, and certainly all the
    doers, are anti-government with a preference for social anarchy,
    the anarchy tempered by some level of realization that the mass
    of humanity can not govern itself in a society which is inherently
    evil. However, if the Libertarian Party can not field a better 
    candidate than Harry Brown, anarchy, or a premature dictatorship,
    it will be.  The US is in the last laugh of the oligarchy at this
    point in time. 
    
In <1.5.4.32.19961218084853.005de95c@popd.ix.netcom.com>, on 12/18/96 
   at 12:48 AM, stewarts@ix.netcom.com said:

::Attila wrote, 
::        symposium were Dr. Jack C. Westman of the University of
::	Wisconsin-Madison, author of "Licensing Parents: Can We
::	Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect?" and Professor David T.
::	Lykken of the University of Minnesota, author of "The
::	Antisocial Personalities."  Westman and Lykken are the
::	most prominent advocates of a system of parental
::	licensure in which parents would have to be certified 
::	"competent" by the government before being permitted to
::	raise a child.
::
::and blanc wrote
::  Someone needs to remind this Senator Lykken what happened in Romania,
::  when the beleaguered citizen-units finally took their 'noble', social 
::  engineering leader Ceausescu, put him up against a wall and
::  shot him.
::
    I do not believe they gave him the benefit (?) of the wall.

    Ceausescu, like all "communist" dictators of this century, was
    just that: a dictator falsely claiming to be the 'Great Father'
    who will right all the wrongs, put too many chickens in each pot,
    and generally hold your hand while his local version of the Gestapo
    permanently eliminates dissent.  It appears to works until the 
    state has drained the natural and human resources of value, further 
    accelerated by corruption and the increasing apathy of the people
    who no longer produce more than a subsistence living at best. 

::Fortunately, Lykken appears to just be a professor, not a legislator, 
::so he can spend your money but can't tell you what to do.
::He's obviously also a subject of his book......

        out of curiosity I was poking around a bit; he apparently has
    legislative backers. I would be surprised if the bill made it out
    a subcommittee hearing. however, his theory melds nicely with the
    intentions of superbitch; there is no doubt in my perception of her
    '...Village' --superbitch is heading for the nursery of "Logan's 
    Run" and the surrogate nanny super-machines. --35+ years ago the 
    book?  I did not see the movie which may or may not have been able
    to deal with the concept of enforced euthanasia at age 21. Super-
    bitch must have seen the movie too many times, or slept with the 
    book in her early pubescent dreams.

::Before we go licensing parents, we ought to license people who
::want to be Big Brothers......

    License them?  Why license them before we hang them?

::[This didn't seem to be cypherpunks material any more...]

        Actually, it is: invasion of privacy; no secure communica-
    tions, and all the other falderol.  

- --
  I'll get a life when it is proven
    and substantiated to be better
      than what I am currently experiencing.
            --attila

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My closing line of this post is "When Cypherpunks are viewed as
"terrorists," we will have done our jobs." So, if this viewpoint offends
you, delete this message now. If you don't understand the context of this
point, you may be a newbie, or a "warez dood," and should probably delete
this message and go back to asking for some new kewl viruses (perhaps on
another, more suitable, forum). If you understand the context, but agree or
disagree, then of course we can discuss it.

At 4:36 PM +0000 12/18/96, attila@primenet.com wrote:

>        Currently, I am not sure what the charter of cypherpunks
>    really stands for, if anything.  As it stands, the list has
>    a far more erudite group than the list it probably should be.
>    certainly more privacy and social engineering issues resulting
>    from the deprivation of privacy than code.

The "charter" is mostly contained in the "welcome message" all subscribers
receive. And further elaborations, as Attila of course knows (but maybe
some others don't) are fleshed out in the essays we write, the material
formerly at the csua/cypherpunks ftp site (I'm not sure it's still there,
as it's been a long time since I looked), etc,

I agree that "programming" per se was never the focus. Even in the early
days, when the remailers were written by E. Hughes and H. Finney, there was
essentially zero discussion of the details of the Perl and/or C
code...which is not surprising, as the number of people conversant in
Perl--and interested at the time the discussion happens--is usally a small
number. Maybe 5 people on the list back then could've meaningfully spent
time looking at the Perl code and discussing it. As I said, this is hardly
surprising.

Instead, a wider audience is reached by--and participates in--debates about
the overall structure of remailers, the role of latency/accumulation, and
so on. (I'm just picking remailers as an example.)

Is this "coding"? In a sense, of course it is. And the design criteria
overlap with politico-legal discussions, e.g., of the need for
extra-jurisdictional remailers, the need for large numbers of them, the
advisability of various types of remailer syntax, etc.

Keeping with this particular example, not that the remailer operators have
their own mailing list to discuss details of current remailer software,
issues of blocking, etc.

Add to this list other such lists, such as "pgp-dev" and the various crypto
lists, and sci.crypt, and sci.crypt.research, and "coderpunks," and this is
why I have very little sympathy when people chime in saying discussion of
digital cash and crypto anarchy have "no place" on this list (Cypherpunks),
that the list is "for coding." Nonsense.

(Oh, and there's now Perry's new list. And filtered lists. And on and on.)

What's making the list almost unreadable for me today are the noisy posts
from newcomers ("doodz, like here are some warez!"), spammers ("make money
fast"), insulters ("John Gilmore (fart) is a Sovok apparatchnik"), and
unsubscribers {who can't spell and who never seem to read the instructions
sent to them).

>        I don't believe Cypherpunks was ever intended to be a technical
>    forum; I was not on for the first few months so I missed the
>    formative discussions of the elitist few, most of whom, other than
>    founder tcmay, have left for greener pastures.

Well, if the early list activists were Eric Hughes, Hugh Daniel, John
Gilmore, and me, only Eric and I were heavy posters in the first months and
years. John and Hugh were always low-volume, off doing other things, or not
primarily interested in the debate on the mailing list. So, only Eric has
moved off to other things.

But so have a lot of folks....look at the active posters from the first
year. Then the second year. And the third. And the fourth. Lots of changes
in names. As expected. People say what they want to say, and hear the same
points a bunch of times. And lots of list members have gotten
crypto-related jobs...the list is very long. (I'm not claiming that they
got the jobs because of our list, but it is interesting the extent to which
list members have found work in crypto and security areas.)

>        For what it's worth, the above is my perception of cypherpunks:
>    an interesting collection of philosopher kings, some of whom are
>    putting their convictions to the means of thwarting the common
>    enemy.  It is no accident most subscribers, and certainly all the
>    doers, are anti-government with a preference for social anarchy,
>    the anarchy tempered by some level of realization that the mass
>    of humanity can not govern itself in a society which is inherently
>    evil. However, if the Libertarian Party can not field a better
>    candidate than Harry Brown, anarchy, or a premature dictatorship,
>    it will be.  The US is in the last laugh of the oligarchy at this
>    point in time.

Being that I think _democracy_ is our number one problem, I'm not at all
surprised that the Libertarian Party is foundering (and floundering, too
:-}). Harry Browne, the best candidate ever (and I voted for the first LP
candidate, John Hospers, in 1972--yes, 1972), got less of the vote this
time around than the past several (weaker) candidates. Oh well. Not
suprising.

_Direct action_ is what it's all about. Undermining the state through the
spread of espionage networks, through undermining faith in the tax system,
through even more direct applications of the right tools at the right times.

When Cypherpunks are called "terrorists," we will have done our jobs.

--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

attila@primenet.com wrote:
>         Currently, I am not sure what the charter of cypherpunks
>     really stands for, if anything.  As it stands, the list has
>     a far more erudite group than the list it probably should be.
>     certainly more privacy and social engineering issues resulting
>     from the deprivation of privacy than code.

I note that the cypherpunks subscriptions are down to 1262 as of 18 Dec.,
compared to 1299 on 30 Nov., 1353 on 04 Nov., and 1361 on 12 Oct.

[snip]

>     However, if the Libertarian Party can not field a better candidate
>     than Harry Brown, anarchy, or a premature dictatorship, it will be.
>     The US is in the last laugh of the oligarchy at this point in time.

Is there an assumption that we really have politics as usual, nowadays in
the U.S.?  Or could it be that there has been a fundamental change, where
the leadership has been decapitated via assassinations, both literal and
of character?

[mo' snip]

>     out of curiosity I was poking around a bit; he apparently has
>     legislative backers. I would be surprised if the bill made it out
>     a subcommittee hearing. however, his theory melds nicely with the
>     intentions of superbitch;

> ::Before we go licensing parents, we ought to license people who
> ::want to be Big Brothers......

Out of curiosity, I asked around myself, beginning with some entrepreneurs
who made it up the hard way.  I expected the same as c-punks, i.e.,
"the hell with those bastards", etc.  No such luck.  The White Folk here
in Orange County (those who are doing well, which is most of them) think
this is a great idea.

Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net> writes:
> I note that the cypherpunks subscriptions are down to 1262 as of 18 Dec.,
> compared to 1299 on 30 Nov., 1353 on 04 Nov., and 1361 on 12 Oct.

Has John Gilmore (spit) been unsuscriving more people? What a jerk.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps