At 3:57 PM -0800 3/4/00, John Young wrote:
>It's worth pondering what demonization and criminalization
>may evolve from close study of the early Cypherpunk archives
>made availalble a few days ago by Ralph Seberry :
>
> http://lanesbry.com/cypherpunks
>
>After a fews days of reading those remarkable exchanges, it would
>be a surprise if they are not already being assessed for explanations
>of what makes the Net so threatening. And now that many of the
>writers have gone on to deeply embed themselves in society to
>carry out their takeover schemes, why it is the duty of every law-abiding
>person to expose these Mitnick moles. Here are the names, get
>plumbing on Deja
I'm watching "Blast from the Past" right now on Starz. Your comments about
the "early days" of the list remind me of Brendan Fraser emerging from the
bunker.
Is this really your first exposure to the 1992-94 list traffic? If so, no
wonder you are having this reaction.
>Declan's report today on the soon to be released recommendation
>to legislate controls on Net anonymity could be a harbinger to
>attack many of the Cypherpunk inventions and proposals. Or even
>to mount a campaign to root out all vestiges of, if not cypherpunkism,
>then cryptoanarchy.
This is just now hitting you? I'd've thunk (thunk--a unit of thought) this
was obvious from any of the more recent traffic years.
>What is surprising, in reviewing the cpunk archives, is the tranformation
>of some into Shimomuras, no doubt, as with him, due to the allure of
>being the best, rather being told that by crafty recruiters like Markoff --
>or did Shimomura's employers recruit The Times.
I will not comment here on either Shimomura or Markoff. There are others,
like a co-founder of our group, who have closer knowledge.
I've know Shimomura for a number of years, since long before his exploits
with Mitnick. From science parties in the Bay Area to the Hackers
Conference to sharing flights from San Jose to San Diego. I've also know
Markoff for a number of years.
There is no point in saying either were "transformed" from Cypherpunks into
whatever-they-became, because they were never Cypherpunks to begin with.
The Mitnick chase was bizarre. Many of us know many of the principals in
that circa 1994-95 period. Very strange. I never read more than a few pages
of "Takedown," figuring that personal information is like soap operas and
gossip.
Was it justified? Was Markoff crossing the boundary between mere journalist
and actual participant? I don't know enough to judge. Markoff has seemed
like a decent person to me, a paricularly thoughtful journalist (he went to
high school with an Intel colleage of mine).
Shimomura seems more of an enigma to me. Of course, he's an inscrutable
Japanese.
Fact is, he acknowledged years ago working on packet sniffers for an
unnamed federal agency. It was pretty obvious to most of us who the likely
customer of Shimomura's handiwork was. I haven't spoken to him in half a
dozen years, since before the Mitnick matter.
What guys like Shimomura and the NSA do is as nothing compared to the
strength of pure mathematics. This is what keeps my spirits up. Eventually
their system will fall, merit will prevail, and the tens of millions of
useless eaters will starve as we shift from a welfare state to something
closer to crypto anarchy.
Let Shimomura build all the packet sniffers he wants.
--Tim May
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
