No, I had not read the early archives, at the time I got on
board there was plenty going on to electrify 6 inches of callus
off my near-dead carcass. Then, later, the early stuff disappeared
with Bilblio, when I had assumed it would be around whenever
needed. And, then the Cyphernomicon was a ready reference.
To read the stuff now is again electrifying. And I wanted to
make the point that some bright DoJ or legislative researcher is
going to run across it while searching for new enemies of the state,
a conspiratorial bunch of them, and lo, looky here.
And you got to admit that it's weird that none of the early
cypherpunks have been caught at, or accused, of sedition.
Or even set up like Mitnick for high-profile prosecution.
Phil Zimmermann's long-running case, and those of Bernstein
and Karn (before Junger) may have helped divert attention
from the cypherpunks open advocacy of subversion. Or was
it that the cypherpunks chose not to break the law, or not in
detectable ways.
Could be that the list was so technologically and politically
informative that it was wise heads who ordered; let it run, cut
these wizards some slack, this is producing superb intel for
easy archiving. And, lo, looky here, Tim May has made us a
handy data mine pointer.
Now, is it tickling the tiger's tail to wonder who's being looked
at to kick off a cyber demonizing agenda for the '00s?
Two reports may provide clues, one is testimony of the CIA
on February 23 on "Cyber Threats and the U.S. Economy:"
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/cyberthreats_022300.html
The other is Jeffrey Richelson's article on Echelon in the March
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/2000/ma00/ma00richelson.html
