-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 C'punks, Phil Zimmermann did not ask me to post this. He would not like it freely disseminated, so feel free to post it wherever you wish. l a i n No Regrets About Shamelessly Exploiting National Tragedy For My Own Personal Gain. This Friday September 21st Washington Post carried an article by Ariana Cha that I feel misrepresents my views on the role I personally had in the September 11th terrorists attacks. She interviewed me on Monday September 17th, and we talked about how I felt about the possibility that the event might be a perfect opportunity for me to get some free press and get back some of the attention I lost since I was effectively kicked out of Network Associates and had to move to that cheesy webmail provider. The article states that as the inventor of PGP, I was "overwhelmed with feelings of guilt". I never implied that in the interview unless it seemed like it would increase my chances of getting in print, and I specifically went out of my way to try to pull other heart strings too just to assure that it would all see the light of day and put my name in lights again. I even made her repeat all this back so she would not get it wrong in the article. After all I am The Phil Zimmermann so I should have editorial control over these kinds of things, don't you think? This misrepresentation is serious. I expect the press to pull only those heart strings that will get me sympathy and allow me to grandstand publicly atop the bodies of the dead and dying in New York and elsewhere without attracting criticism of a substantial nature. The article implies that under the duress of terrorism I have changed my principles on the importance of my own vanity and ego and that I have pandered to the anti-crypto crowd in my endless quest to rediscover my former glory. You see, civil liberties and cryptography used to be a good platform for my self-promotion but with the acquisition of PGP and the closing of the source code I am now relegated to the unenviable stature of a "has-been" and a "one trick pony". You can probably understand why I jumped at the chance to indulge in a little self-promotion when those tall boxy things collapsed in New York this month. Because I am The Phil Zimmermann and my views are so important, Ms. Cha read to me most of the article by phone before she went about ignoring the express instructions of my PR agent not to print anything about me crying more than once or twice. It didn't seem very manly, they said. I miss Kelly Blough. She used to keep me out of trouble when I stuck my foot in my mouth in public. The article that appeared in the Post was significantly shorter than the original. I had so much important stuff to say that I cannot believe they took out my discussions on foreign affairs, international monetary policy, the national debt and Kevin Bacon's chances to capture a senate seat in an off year. I can only speculate that her editors must have decided their paper was not a forum for my own self-aggrandizement and taken some inappropriate liberties in removing all the work I put into composing my public image for that article. What the hell? In the interview six days after the attack, just after my PR rep called me and said that I might get in the paper if I played my cards right and this could be a huge boost for my career, we talked about the fact that I had cried over the heartbreaking tragedy, as everyone else did. In fact the tears were not because of guilt, but a highly concentrated formula of lemon juice that I applied to my eyelids before going out in public. When that stopped working I hit my thumb with a hammer for good measure. Let me tell you, nothing gets me teary eyed like a good thumb-whacking. I also told her about some hate mail I received that blamed me for developing a technology that could be used by terrorists. I didn't tell her that this email came from my PR rep. I told her I felt bad about the possibility of terrorists using PGP, but that I also felt that this was outweighed by the fact that I now had a personal stake in the tragedy with which to bootstrap my flagging ego and public image in a national publication. I also weaved some bullshit about human rights and crap, the kind of stuff I used to believe when I actually coded stuff rather than just babbling on about it like I mostly do now. Ah, I was so young and stupid. It appears that this nuance was not lost on the Washington Post since they made me look like the little sissy I always feared people saw me as. I imagine this was caused by my PR staff being stretched to their limits in an effort to keep me out of trouble and from saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people. God, why do I always do that? In these emotional times, we in the crypto community find ourselves sidelined and ignored because our technology is so universal that no one thinks we are anything novel anymore. I do not want to give ammunition to these efforts by allowing the controversial sides of cryptography to be forgotten. I think the article correctly showed that I over-did things a bit with that crying in the shower quote, but that was my Publicist's idea. "Sex sells, Phil, baby", they said "use it". Did I re-examine my career path and my PR efforts in the wake of this tragedy? Of course I did. But the outcome of this re-examination was the same as it was during the years when people actually thought I was actually doing something, namely that someone better use cryptography in perpetrating a serious crime soon or the debate might fade and with it my glory days and meal ticket. Thank god for Osama! My career is back. I will have to do something about that PR firm and this article business, but in the meantime read my lips: I have no regrets about shamelessly invoking the name of the dead for my own personal gain and some smartassed reporter who refuses to be a platform for my personal promotion is just going to get run over by the new Zimmermann propaganda engine. I'm back baby. I'm back. I'm looking out for number one. Phil. Phil is number one. I'm going to buy my self some new clothes, a manicure, a facial, get back in shape, get a makeover, all of it. Phil is hitting the town. I feel like Churchill when the Nazi's started to finally make some damn noise. Resurrected baby. Res-urr-fucking-ected. The question of whether strong cryptography should be restricted by the government was debated all through the golden years for Phil Zimmermann, the 1990's. This debate had the participation of the White House, the NSA, the FBI, the courts, the Congress, the computer industry, civilian academia, and the press. Of course at the center of it all was me, Phil Zimmermann. This debate made me and PGP, both of which would have remained obscure and generally unheard of by anyone but geeks otherwise. This debate fully took into account the question of terrorists using strong crypto, and in fact, we tried to make that that one of the core issues of the debate. Unfortunately, no one used crypto in a major crime or act of terrorism so the debate fizzled out and with it went my invitations to parties, hearings, lectures and my talk circuit fees. Export controls were lifted and no domestic controls were imposed. I was pretty much out of a job. I should never have let PGP stay freeware. Can you imagine what I would be worth now? Look at Jim Bidzos! That was a terrible mistake that will not only hurt my wallet, but also increase my vulnerability to smartassed reporters like that Cha chick. PGP users should rest assured that I still will not acquiesce to any back doors in PGP. Of course since I have almost nothing to do with the development of the most widespread versions of PGP anymore no one really needs my permission to monkey with the code, do they? Still, I'm going to keep saying that because it makes me sound like a general figure of menace in the community. It is noteworthy that I had only received a single piece of hate mail on this subject, from my PR rep, and it was only really a sample of what would be nice for me to get so as to be able to comment on it for the article they had arranged an interview for. It is also noteworthy that this one piece of mail really generated a lot of publicity for me once it was printed in that Cha chick's article. Pretty soon I was dealing with so many press interviews that I did not have time to even send the check to my PR people to composed a carefully worded reply, which would of course have been published or leaked out quickly. Phil is busy again baby! Now I receive hundreds of supportive emails, flooding in at two or three per minute! Of course, some people saw through my thinly veiled PR effort, but I'm not counting those emails. This latest spin should put all that stuff to rest. Thanks to my PR group I have always enjoyed good relations with the press over the past decade, well not counting the fact that I haven't been IN the press much lately, but boy, some things are going to change with those people and let me assure all my fans that I'm cutting off the Post until they start to tow the line. -Philip "Press Whore" Zimmermann 25 September 2001 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 7.0.1 iQA/AwUBO7C+zf6o0E6piE+3EQKVPwCg1pw+jkTJJXk80nTkPaiK6vtQ7RIAn0jX baWfteAL7C7Vwrw1+miAvF5o =ZK8Q -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
