From: nobody@cypherpunks.ca (John Anonymous MacDonald)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 08:36:46 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "Nightmare on Crypto Street--the Return of Sun Devil"
Message-ID: <199611121619.IAA00293@abraham.cs.berkeley.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Peter Hendrickson wrote:

< snip >

... the more we can erode the barriers between code and language,
>the stronger the case is that laws governing code are violations of
>the First Amendment.  What if you had a compiler that accepted English
>language instructions for how to build a crypto system?  "Take a
>random number 64 bits long.  Then find a prime which is a little
>larger.  Then...."  The language itself should remain protected by the
>First Amendment even if somebody else has a compiler which can turn it
>into software.

Agreed, and this is happening (slowly). Some have said that "cypherpunks
spread crypto" is a better motto than just "cypherpunks write code," for
this reason and because it covers broader ground, although coding will
always be essential to any of the other cypherpunk efforts in the end.
Theres a lot of talent on this list, despite a few nuts mixed in.

>Another conclusion we can draw is that cryptoanarchy is more of a
>political issue than many of us would like.  That means we might put
>more effort into public opinion than just straight coding.  (Tim may
>claim otherwise, but I think he agrees with this in practice.)

Distasteful, but probably true.

>It may also be that the "bad boy" image of the Cypherpunks is
>counterproductive to our goals.

I'm not sure it's so bad, among the better educated anyway.