From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 14:22:59 +0800
To: "Patiwat Panurach  (akira rising)" <pati@ipied.tu.ac.th>
Subject: Are Cypherpunks Influential?
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960124161017.006d5ba0@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 08:23 PM 1/24/96 +0700, Patiwat Panurach  (akira rising) wrote:

>Would you call cypherpunks (as a group and as a philosophy) to be
>influential?  Do you think governments listen to us much?  Are they forced
>to listen to us?  Any stuff to support this?  Please give me your comments.

Much more influential than deserved.  We've gotten a lot of press.  

I would say that we are an example of cultural entrepreneurship.  An
entrepreneur makes money by noticing that there is an unexploited difference
between the price of a final product and the sum of the prices of the
factors of its production (discounted to present value).  We noticed that
there is a difference between the social and technical capabilities of
modern math and modern computing on the one hand and the public perception
of those capabilities on the other.  By simply pointing out those mistakes
in public perception and doing some (as little as possible) coding to prove
it, we've gained some publicity.

An example of the gap between perception and reality that we can easily
exploit, I would point to the regulation of broadcasting.  There's a lot of
talk with the telecoms bill about whether and how much broadcasting should
be deregulated but it is obvious to us that it already has been.  

I was thinking of that while doing my mail and listening to the Leader of
the Free World last night via RealAudio 2.0 and KLIF radio in Dallas via
Audionet.  Radio has been deregulated by technological change since
RealAudio appeared last Summer.  TV dereg will follow with the higher
bandwidth.  

All cypherpunks have done is to point out simple facts like this.  Pretty
easy work if you can get it.  

DCF

"My fellow Americans, we must free our nation from the tyranny of "Others
Government" and turn instead to "Self Government".  We must accomplish this
great task not for ourselves, but for the *Children*." -- 10-second SOTU Address