From: holist <holist@elender.hu>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 22:36:55 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: No Subject
Message-ID: <199812151359.OAA05737@mail.elender.hu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Tim May wrote:

>Clearly the Wassenaar folks will be so influenced by a few thousands
>computer users withdrawing from the Net for one frigging day that they will
>rethink their Orwellian plans and will admit their crimes in an orgy of
>self-criticism.

Like the Irony.

But. I striked (or is it stroke?).

Largely as practice - not checking my e-mail for a continuous 24 hours was a
major spiritual trial. In return, I discovered a whole range of alternative
ways of spending evenings. You may have heard that in several countries in
Europe, telephone strikes by the public were successful in bringing
telephone prices down radically. Similar strikes by interenet users were
also successful in obtaining special deals, such as *flat rate local calls*
(a brand new buzzword in the hereabouts), at least on internet calls. What I
mean to say is there's a place for a strike.

>The _only_ motivation was to induce journalists to give the think a few
>column inches, if even that. "Hundreds of geeks cut their noses off to
>spite their faces...details on page 75."

Well, just imagine those one-day strikes becoming a kind of craze on the
internet.
Be honest now, you could do with one day a week when you simply avoided the
frizzy screen, perhaps even two (heard about two-day week-ends, pal? When I
went to school in seventies Hungary, we were allowed off every second
Saturday as a great favour!)

People could use their leisure-time, their time off-line, as capital, just
by timing it with a little care! Boycott-brokerage! You'd be borrowing the
muscle of the entire network: after all, they'd not be kind to anyone who
somehow or other pissed customers off enough to drop network traffic by 10
percent?

Exporting PGP within minutes of its release...now _that's_ a meaningful
action! (And one which Cypherpunks continue to be good at.)

How meaningful exactly? How do you know who gets it? The truly valuable work
is the creation of the social structures wherein such exportation could be
truly meaningful. I don't see a lot of that (perhaps you'll smirk and say
they hid themselves too well). It is quite clear to me that educating the
public is imperative: if people haven't got a clue as to what strong
cryptography is, etc. then they're not going to remember something as
foreign as Wassenaar even if it is on the evening news. But surruptitiously
spreading PGP to other countries doesn't seem to do a great deal of that.

What does?

Hacker activities that are illegal and dangerous and probably difficult,
too, have obvious potential.

But I think there must also be legal options.

comments, please



Let's leave the "National Solidarity Against Racist Policies" crapola to
the lefties.

--Tim May