From: Stanton McCandlish <anton@hydra.unm.edu>
Date: Sun, 2 May 93 03:02:18 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Tactics.
In-Reply-To: <9304301204.AA23052@pizzabox.demon.co.uk>
Message-ID: <9305021001.AA16104@hydra.unm.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Hooo boy, just got that new _Wired_ (things get to New Mexico rather behind
schedule.)  What nut came up with that Cypherpunks article?!  The TEXT is good,
but god those photos.  To people like us they are keen.  But what happens
when 16 yr. old Jamie's mom sees that? What is she to think of all these 
subversive longhairs with KKK-reminiscent masks, and one of them flashing a 
nasty-looking dagger?  Like I say, to ME it was ok, but viewed with a 
conservative outsider's eyes, we look positively dangerous.  I can't help
but think that that article was a PR/memetic misadventure of a HIGH mag-
nitude, and could do quite a bit to hurt our cause.  What happens when clipper
is big enough news to earn a prime time news slot, and they show excerpts of
that photo?  It is going to scare the living shit out of most people, and
they are immediately going to jump on the clipper band wagon.  In my never
even remotely humble opinion, that article (or photoshoot, anyway) was a 
Bad Bad Thing.  Not that Stanton "Call my BBS for free PGP" McCandlish
is known for PR work, but sheesh...
-- 
Testes saxi solidi!  **********************   Podex opacus gravedinosus est!  
Stanton McCandlish,  SysOp:  Noise in the Void Data Center BBS
IndraNet: 369:1/1      FidoNet: 1:301/2      Internet: anton@hydra.unm.edu
Snail: 8020 Central SE #405, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA
Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1)
Vox phone:  +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:)