From: Monty Cantsin <mc@dev.null>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 16:41:34 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: InfoWar Epilogue 1 / TEXT
Message-ID: <343F373B.7D6A@dev.null>
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                       The True Story of the InterNet
                                  Part III

                                   InfoWar

                  Final Frontier of the Digital Revolution

                     Behind the ElectroMagnetic Curtain

                        by TruthMonger <tm@dev.null>

Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing
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                          InfoWar Table of Contents

   * Epilogue
   * Priscilla

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                                  Epilogue
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The sun was rising over the mountain peaks, crimson streaks of light
streaming through the trees, striking the multi-colored falling leaves.
As the tattered remnants of the Magic Circle slept soundly, after days of
flight to the security of their last remaining hideaway, twin rays of light
split the air in the cave above them, with silver leaves twisting lazily
down from the skylight at its peak, turning to a blazing scarlet as they
passed through the lower streak of light, like blood dripping off a chain
saw...

This was a moment stranded in time...not abandoned, but suspended in the
twilight which lay between the future and the past...between the beginning of
time and the end of time...or vice-versa.
A twinkling of time, wherein the sun was neither rising, nor setting...merely
waiting for a whisper from the Tao before deciding which way to proceed in
its journey toward eternity...
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                                  Priscilla

Perhaps I look at life a bit differently from some of the remaining members
of the Magic Circle, because I am a mother.
That is probably why, of all Bubba's many stories of the characters in the
legends surrounding the Magic Circle, I most enjoyed the ones concerning the
Author and Bubba d'Shauneaux swapping stories about the Author's mother.
My favorite remains the one of how she worked at a small newspaper, in a
small town, at a time when it was unheard of for a woman to write a sports
column. She simply took on a masculine nome-de-plume, put some obscure man's
picture next to it on the column header, and proceeded to do exactly what
she wanted to do.

"To him who does what within him lies, God will not deny his grace."
- Saint Augustine

This is something that mothers instinctively understand, and their joy or
heartache, if they have remained on a path with heart, is not from their
children's success or status in the eyes of others, but in their child's own
inner eye.
Likewise in the Magic Circle. It's members recognize one another instantly,
not from their outer appearances, but from an inner quality of being that is
acquired only by being true to one's inherent soul-pattern and making
choices that are in line with their true destiny in life.

Bubba Rom Dos tells a story about the Author and d'Shauneaux I discussing
members of the CypherPunks list.
"Bianca was listening to them discuss whom on the list they would trust to
vote for them. When they discussed Kent Crispin, the Author said, 'If he
tried to cast my vote for me, I would be forced to kill him.'
"d'Shauneaux asked the Author if he would trust Crispin to watch his back
for him in the real world, and the Author replied, 'In a heartbeat.'
"Bianca asked the Author, 'If he was your child, would you be proud of him?'
and he replied, without hesitation, 'Yes...but I'd spank him, too.'"

Cowboy once told me that he thought I had perhaps given one of the most
astute definitions of the CypherPunks he had ever heard, and that it was a
description that only a mother could give.
I had told him that I thought they were "deranged saints with an attitude."
I suspect that he was so grandly impressed with my description because it
fit himself so well. As a child, I mean, of course (nod-nod, wink-wink;)

The CypherPunks were an oddball assortment of scrappers and elitists,
mathematicians, philosophers, physicists, lunatics and poets...ad infinitum...
The CypherPunk mailing list, however, had a spirit of life about it, with
even the most brutal of attacks usually having some basis of logic
underpinning them. Meanness and pettiness were not the rule of the day and
were seldom tolerated for long on the list without any one of a wide number
of list members stepping in to give the originator an 'attitude adjustment.'

Even in the midst of some of the CypherPunks' most ferocious of their
legendary pissing contests, some poor bastard would shoot himself in the
foot that he or she had put in their mouth, at which point the thread would
often pause, like the Civil War hiatus wherein opposing sides would 'do
lunch' and claim their dead, and everyone would join in soundly ridiculing
the offending party before resuming their pissing party (or forgetting about
it and moving on to less meaningful activities).

After Vice-Admiral d'Shauneaux had taken over Pearl Harbor Computers, Inc.,
and had written the Epilogue to 'The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre' someone asked
him what he liked most about the bizarre cryptographers he was following who
had formed the CypherPunks mailing list.
His cryptic reply was, "They're Troopers!"

I asked Bubba once whether the Admiral was referring to the rumors that they
were all double or triple agents of three-letter secret agencies of one sort
or another, or to one of the Author's favorite musical groups, who sang,
"We're here for a good time, not a long time, so have a good time...the sun
doesn't shine every day."
Bubba's answer was, "Both."

If you are reading this, then I presume that the Trei Transponder is no
longer functioning, and has transferred the InformEnergy from the Epilogue
HydroCube which was meant only to be sent in the event that we were forced
to abandon our last remaining safe house and beat feet to our mountain
hideaway.
No matter what your view of what the tattered remnants of a mythical group
from the future have chosen to share with you, I hope and pray that you will
learn as much from your future as we have from our past.

You may not yet fully realize the full import of the story that you and we
have woven together from what could have been, and what may yet be, but it
will not be long before you will.

Remember:
"Patience comes to those who wait..."
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                        "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre"

                 "WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs"

           "InfoWar (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet')

                Soviet Union Sickle of Eunuchs Secret WebSite
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