From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 17:15:25 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: A Cypherpunk Trial, Yes
Message-ID: <199809092216.SAA19854@dewdrop2.mindspring.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Adam Back wrote:

>The collection of Toto's keys that he did post and the date he posted
>might be useful to archive at jya.com so that we can see which if any
>of Gordon's claims of proof of authentic Toto messages are valid.

Yes, this is a crucial point. The innuendo of the complaint needs
checking, and read with a heap of salt, although it's probable that 
the Feds have more than revealed so far. They've more fanciful 
stories to spiel of the confabulous material of the Mounties and 
Estevan Bombies, and SS agents and bunkered magistrates 
and imperiled Cindys needing protection from the Killer Bots.

To hawk tickets we have added links within the complaint to all 
the Cpunk messages cited, but for those who don't want to 
download it again or search the archives, here they are 
chronologically:

   http://jya.com/jg062397.htm
   http://jya.com/jg090497.htm
   http://jya.com/jg120997.htm
   http://jya.com/jg121497.htm
   http://jya.com/jg060898.htm (not June 10, as in the complaint; thanks to
jeff-anon)
   http://jya.com/jg072598.htm
   http://jya.com/jg072798.htm

It was a pleasure to reread Toto(s)'s stuff while searching the 
cpunk amazing archives -- what a waterfall from everyone of free 
association, tants, jibes, potshots and richochets and self-mockery. 
I now believe the report from TX that Carl's got an IQ off the charts
like all cpunks off the wall.

It's worth keeping in mind that multiple users of pseudonyms is
not unusual, at least among artists long before the Internet, and 
not only performance group e-mailers like the Totos, CJ Parkers, 
XxxMongers, Gus-Peters and endless Anonymees jostling for
unrecognition.

Two venerable and heavily-used nyms in Europe are Luther Bissett 
and Monty Cantsin. A dazzling Monty Cantsin posted here for a 
while. A Luther Bissett message ridiculing the recent kiddie porn
sweep was posted to Cyberia a few days ago. But these pseudonyms 
and others are frequently used to taunt uptight authoritarians by 
substantial numbers of people, sometimes acting in concert but 
most often acting alone.

An exemplary case of acting up like the Totos and other performance
pseudo-Feynmann's here, is that of Dario Fo, the Italian artist who 
recently won the Nobel Prize. His off the chart genius, too, was in 
mixing the real and imaginary to challenge, and to frighten, authority 
into revealing their treacherous deception of the real and imaginary 
to maintain state and religious control century after century, culture
after culture. He, too, was regularly condemned by those obsesses
with holding onto power, and sometimes arrested, for his imitations
of them at their most buffoonish and serious.

Fo is from an earlier generation, though, and what more agressively
offensive form is suitable for those younger we may be witnessing in 
the Jim Bells, Unknown Arrestees, and those here not yet projected 
onto the world stage but working the crowd most effectively.

Black Unicorn, step up to the mike. Show magic.

In any, case, I'm delighted to see Cypherpunks get credit in the Johnson
pseudo-complaint for hosting transgressive art appropriate for the age of 
widespreading disinformation. A tumultous trial to amplify this forum's 
mayhemic virtues and vices would be magnificently chaotic and hopefully 
anarchic to the max. 

Pray for CJ to get an equally mad attorney to demand his day, and our day, 
in court. This under-recognized witness is eager for a highly offensive 
part to play, a gibbering idiot like Toto(s), you bet, I admire their style of
spleen and threat to the fools of seriousness.