From: anon <grendl@rigel.infonex.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 22:56:42 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Cypherpunk Enquirer
Message-ID: <199703070656.WAA26262@rigel.infonex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain





			THE CYPHERPUNK ENQUIRER

                   "Encyphering minds want to know."



Dr. Dimitri Vulis came out of the closet today on nationwide television.
On Geraldo Rivera's special show "Why Geeks Aren't Getting Any" Dr.
Vulis, widely known as an ASCII artist, admitted to having crushes on
noted cypherpunks John Gilmore and Tim May.  "I've tried subtle hints,
blatant suggestions, everything," the noted cryptographer and sexual
advice column author whined, "but they both keep ignoring me.  Maybe
I should just admit that they're probably both straight and get on
with my life."  When contacted at Toad Hall, John Gilmore expressed
surprise that Dr. Vulis was seeking a sexual relationship with him,
but noted in passing that he had not seen any of Vulis' recent posts
since Dr. Vulis' name is now included in the default killfiles for the
latest versions of Eudora, procmail and mixmaster.  Representatives of the
Enquirer attempted to contact Tim May for comment, but were driven away
by a barrage of small arms fire.

The Cypherpunk Academy of Codes and Cyphers today announced the winner
of the annual Perry Award, given to the cypherpunk who has contributed
the most over the past year to increasing the S/N ratio on the list.
The winner this year is John Gilmore, for shutting down toad.com.
"Admittedly, this is a stretch for us," stated the committed chair-
person, "since it involved some philosophical and mathematical problems
with dividing 0 by infinity, but at least it's not as bad as the
cryptography list.  Nobody here can figure out what to do with a S/N
of 0/0."  Jim Bell, a strong runner up, was also in the running, but,
as one spokesperson said, "we felt that most of his contribution came
from his inability to spell the word 'unsubscribe'."

In related news, the "Vaporware of the Month" award goes to the 
International DES challenge attack, for still not having even beta
versions of their software available, even though at least three
competing projects have been operational for several weeks.  When
contacted by the Enquirer Piete Brooks, leader of the committee, admitted
that a lot of the problem was due to arguments over how to divide the
money resulting from their present and potentially far more lucrative
but still unsuccessful attack, an attempt to brute force the Black
Unicorn's ATM PIN number at the Bank of Liechtenstein.

The Chaos Computer Club of Hamburg, Germany, was awarded $10,000
yesterday by RSA, Inc. for being the first to crack the RC5-128
challenge.  "It was a fairly simple hack," stated an anonymous
spokesperson for the notorious hackers group, "we simple coded up
an ActiveX application that, when downloaded, immediately started
using all the spare CPU cycles for the brute force attack.  Then
we put inserted it into a "Minihan Sucks!" web page, and waited for
the NSA to show up."

Next:  from FC97 - what did Hettinga REALLY do with all those bananas?
Encyphering minds want to know!