From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 21:45:06 -0800 (PST)
To: " C  M" <cookies_monsters@hotmail.com>
Subject: Cypherpunks pointers
In-Reply-To: <199703152006.MAA18486@f4.hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19970318213850.006169f8@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 12:06 PM 3/15/97 -0800, cookies_monsters@hotmail.com wrote:
>I came accross the "Cypherpunks" link and I wanted to know more? Can you tell
>me where to get more information. I have little clue as to what this outfit
>does. Thanks.

Sorry for the delay; it's been a busy week.  I'll forward you a couple of 
articles that have come out recently.  

The original Cypherpunks archive is on www.csua.berkeley.edu/cypherpunks,
which has good stuff though it hasn't been updated recently.
Tim May's Cyphernomicon is a great summary, available in one or more pieces.
Cypherpunks started as a discussion group, which became a mailing list,
for people interested in cryptographic and computer techniques for 
protecting privacy; if you can convince the government to pass laws 
protecting privacy, or refrain from passing laws attacking it,
you're only protected until the next Congresscritter or bureaucrat feels 
like writing a new law - but if you develop and publish software that
lets you protect your conversations with strong crypto, they're secure
until the laws of mathematics change (happens occasionally :-).
"Cypherpunks write code."  Cypherpunks also debug code - sometimes
your crypto software is only secure until the next implementation bug
gets found.  Some of the interesting work that cypherpunks have done
has been popularizing and enhancing PGP, developing remailers,
cracking 40-bit crypto and other weak government-imposed limits,
finding bugs in the Clipper chip, and finding bugs in Netscape and MSIE.
A perennial topic is digital cash, which is an important part of a
free economy in cyberspace, and many cypherpunks have either worked on,
or with, or around (:-) David Chaum's Digicash company; www.digicash.com.

Getting on the list - the list used to be on toad.com, but has
since migrated to several places, which will eventually be gatewayed together
into some joint mailing list.  cypherpunks-request@cyberpass.net
will point you to the information for cyberpass.net, which is probably
the mailbot majordomo@sirius.infonex.com.  cypherpunks-request@algebra.com
will another section, and alt.cypherpunks is a Usenet group.
Some related lists can be found at coderpunks-request@toad.com and
cryptography-request@c2.net.

Archives - AltaVista knows where the archives live....
Good places to look for software include ftp.ox.ac.uk and ftp.funet.fi.
ftp.pgp.net will pick a random non-US location that carries PGP.
www.pgp.com is PGP, Inc.'s US-based web site.  www.rsa.com has been 
known to carry interesting material as well.  John Young posts all
sorts of interesting news to the list; see www.jya.com.
Many strange things end up in the incoming directory on replay.com.
news://nntp.hks.net and infinity.nus.sg have also carried archives in the past.

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#     (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)