From: Michael Wilson <0005514706@mcimail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 03:41:24 +0800
To: cypherpunks <cypherpunks@algebra.com>
Subject: [PROJECT] Virtual c'punks forum
Message-ID: <97051919274736/0005514706DC3EM@mcimail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Tim May recently made some comments that it might be a good idea to
avoid having any physical meetings of cypherpunks for the near future,
given the Jim Bell circumstance.  This ties in with a project that I
am currently undertaking, and I thought I would solicit assistance
from the cypherpunks at large.

Those of you familiar with the mechanisms of the net may be familiar
with the concept of MUSHes (a variant of the Multi User Domain or
MUD).  While email/lists are a wonderful asynchronous communication
tool, the value of an interactive medium which provides real-time
discussion is a piece of the overall communication spectrum that has
been overlooked (mostly).  New efforts to move audio or video are
interesting, but the net bandwidth needed is extreme at this stage,
and frankly 'a word is worth a thousand pictures.'

Myself and a friend would like to initiate a MUSH oriented around
creating a virtual meeting place for virtual organizations, such as
the cypherpunks.  Chat systems like IRC don't provide a context,
or some of the nifty features you can build into a MUSH.  We can
provide the coding muscle (although help is always welcome--MUSHcode
is a bastard variant similar to C or PASCAL, with some LISPy list
processing), but we need a host to provide us with a machine.  If
you might be interested, drop me a line, I can feed you the MUSH
requirements (light--~20M disk space, and light processing, since
you're just moving text).

A MUSH for a virtual organization will provide benefits:
-- an 'avatar' address in the net where people can leave you mail or
connect for an interactive discussion;
-- a virtual space, like an office, for people who want one;
-- meeting rooms, with logging available;
-- simulations;
-- briefings, so for instance, a newbie to cypherpunks could be told
the address and they could log in to receive a canned (but still more
interactive) discussion of cypherpunk issues and technology, as well
as the option to talk with other c'punks;
-- clients for MUSHes are freely available (including window and
shell variants), and we could also hack together a secure client;
this will also be a good time to work out 'anonymous telnet' systems
(MUSHes allow admin to see the host of origin, but not username).

We would like to begin this project inside the next few weeks, and
we could have something reasonably functional inside of a month after
that.  Incidentally, this is a project we've been working on for some
time, just that the need and utility have suddenly become timely.

Michael Wilson
5514706@mcimail.com