From: nobody@cypherpunks.ca (John Anonymous MacDonald)
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 03:56:20 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: 'robert' and his 'hipcrime' web site
Message-ID: <199609111609.JAA25770@abraham.cs.berkeley.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Have you considered who is funding this "hipcrime" site?  Web sites aren't
terribly expensive these days, but someone paid at least a few hundred
dollars in set-up fees for this.  Now, I realize that most artists really
just like to draw, and will spend money on their art projects without
expecting any kind of benefit; that is not unusual.  What is unusual is
the disclaimer and its corporate mentailty, and the "anarchist info".

It's obvious that this guy's true passion is fractals and raytracing.  
He threw in some bomb-making stuff, but he scanned it out of a book and
probably never tried it.  Compared to the rest of the site, it looks like
an afterthought.  Someone who was really interested in chemistry would
have taken the time to retype the info and add their own comments.  He
had a reason to have some "anarchist" info on there but he's not really
interested in it.  So basically this guy is a mathematician/artist trying
to pretend he's an anarchist.

Same goes for the remailers.  He claims he likes remailers and anonymity,
but he's lying.  Anyone who really liked remailers/anonymity/privacy would
have pages and pages about how to use remailers, and why privacy is a good
thing.  He has a reason he needs to be anonymous, but it's not because
he supports privacy.  He publishes a PGP key, because he wants to pretend
he's an anarchist, and Louis Freeh told him that all evil terrorist
organizations use PGP.  But he doesn't like PGP, he doesn't advocate PGP,
and he doesn't tell you where to get PGP.

So we have a guy, probably with an education in mathematics, who likes
abstract art.  Not what would generally be considered a political figure.
But there's something else there - something that doesn't want to be seen,
something that is very strongly law&order, something that doesn't
understand the anarchy of the net, and fears it.  Something that has the
money to fund lots of little pet projects.  Is robert@precipice.v-site.net
just a useful idiot who found someone who will fund his fractal creations?
Or is he a willing participant?  I guess it doesn't matter really.

Someone here doesn't like us... didn't like us before Hipcrime went online,
and still doesn't like us.  But now at least he's got our attention.