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2. MFAQ--Most Frequently Asked Questions
Most Frequently Asked Questions
============
##2.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
2.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
##2.2. SUMMARY: MFAQ--Most Frequently Asked Questions
Main Points
- These are the main questions that keep coming up. Not
necessarily the most basic question, just the ones that get
asked a lot. What most FAQs are.
- Connections to Other Sections
- Where to Find Additional Information
- newcomers to crypto should buy Bruce Schneier's "Applied
Cryptography"...it will save many hours worth of
unnecessary questions and clueless remarks about
cryptography.
- the various FAQs publishe in the newsroups (like sci.crypt,
alt.security.pgp) are very helpful. (also at rtfm.mit.edu)
- Miscellaneous Comments
- I wasn't sure what to include here in the MFAQ--perhaps
people can make suggestions of other things to include.
- My advice is that if something interests you, use your
editing/searching tools to find the same topic in the main
section. Usually (but not always) there's more material in
the main chapters than here in the MFAQ.
2.2. SUMMARY: MFAQ--Most Frequently Asked Questions
2.2.1. Main Points
- These are the main questions that keep coming up. Not
necessarily the most basic question, just the ones that get
asked a lot. What most FAQs are.
2.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
2.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- newcomers to crypto should buy Bruce Schneier's "Applied
Cryptography"...it will save many hours worth of
unnecessary questions and clueless remarks about
cryptography.
- the various FAQs publishe in the newsroups (like sci.crypt,
alt.security.pgp) are very helpful. (also at rtfm.mit.edu)
2.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- I wasn't sure what to include here in the MFAQ--perhaps
people can make suggestions of other things to include.
- My advice is that if something interests you, use your
editing/searching tools to find the same topic in the main
section. Usually (but not always) there's more material in
the main chapters than here in the MFAQ.
##2.3. "What's the 'Big Picture'?"
- Strong crypto is here. It is widely available.
- It implies many changes in the way the world works. Private
channels between parties who have never met and who never
will meet are possible. Totally anonymous, unlinkable,
untraceable communications and exchanges are possible.
- Transactions can only be *voluntary*, since the parties are
untraceable and unknown and can withdraw at any time. This
has profound implications for the conventional approach of
using the threat of force, directed against parties by
governments or by others. In particular, threats of force
will fail.
- What emerges from this is unclear, but I think it will be a
form of anarcho-capitalist market system I call "crypto
anarchy." (Voluntary communications only, with no third
parties butting in.)
2.3. "What's the 'Big Picture'?"
2.3.1. Strong crypto is here. It is widely available.
2.3.2. It implies many changes in the way the world works. Private
channels between parties who have never met and who never
will meet are possible. Totally anonymous, unlinkable,
untraceable communications and exchanges are possible.
2.3.3. Transactions can only be *voluntary*, since the parties are
untraceable and unknown and can withdraw at any time. This
has profound implications for the conventional approach of
using the threat of force, directed against parties by
governments or by others. In particular, threats of force
will fail.
2.3.4. What emerges from this is unclear, but I think it will be a
form of anarcho-capitalist market system I call "crypto
anarchy." (Voluntary communications only, with no third
parties butting in.)
2.4. Organizational
2.4.1. "How do I get on--and off--the Cypherpunks list?"
- Send a message to "cypherpunks-request@toad.com"
- Any auto-processed commands?
- don't send requests to the list as a whole....this will
mark you as "clueless"
2.4.2. "Why does the Cypherpunks list sometimes go down, or lose the
subscription list?"
- The host machine, toad.com, owned by John Gilmore, has had
the usual problems such machines have: overloading,
shortages of disk space, software upgrades, etc. Hugh
Daniel has done an admirable job of keeping it in good
shape, but problems do occur.
- Think of it as warning that lists and communication systems
remain somewhat fragile....a lesson for what is needed to
make digital money more robust and trustable.
- There is no paid staff, no hardware budget for
improvements. The work done is strictly voluntarily.
2.4.3. "If I've just joined the Cypherpunks list, what should I do?"
- Read for a while. Things will become clearer, themes will
emerge, and certain questions will be answered. This is
good advice for any group or list, and is especially so for
a list with 500 or more people on it. (We hit 700+ at one
point, then a couple of list outages knocked the number
down a bit.)
- Read the references mentioned here, if you can. The
sci.crypt FAQ should be read. And purchase Bruce Schneier's
"Applied Cryptography" the first chance you get.
- Join in on things that interest you, but don't make a fool
of yourself. Reputations matter, and you may come to regret
having come across as a tedious fool in your first weeks on
the list. (If you're a tedious fool after the first few
weeks, that may just be your nature, of course.)
- Avoid ranting and raving on unrelated topics, such as
abortion (pro or con), guns (pro or con), etc. The usual
topics that usually generate a lot of heat and not much
light. (Yes, most of us have strong views on these and
other topics, and, yes, we sometimes let our views creep
into discussions. There's no denying that certain
resonances exist. I'm just urging caution.)
2.4.4. "I'm swamped by the list volume; what can I do?"
- This is a natural reaction. Nobody can follow it all; I
spend entirely too many hours a day reading the list, and I
certainly can't follow it all. Pick areas of expertise and
then follow them and ignore the rest. After all, not seeing
things on the list can be no worse than not even being
subscribed to the list!
- Hit the "delete" key quickly
- find someone who will digest it for you (Eric Hughes has
repeatedly said anyone can retransmit the list this way;
Hal Finney has offered an encrypted list)
+ Better mailers may help. Some people have used mail-to-news
systems and then read the list as a local newsgroup, with
threads.
- I have Eudora, which supports off-line reading and
sorting features, but I generally end up reading with an
online mail program (elm).
- The mailing list may someday be switched over to a
newsgroup, a la "alt.cypherpunks." (This may affect some
people whose sites do not carry alt groups.)
2.4.5. "It's very easy to get lost in the morass of detail here. Are
there any ways to track what's *really* important?"
- First, a lot of the stuff posted in the Usenet newsgroups,
and on the Cypherpunks list, is peripheral stuff,
epiphenomenal cruft that will blow away in the first strong
breeze. Grungy details about PGP shells, about RSA
encryption speeds, about NSA supercomputers. There's just
no reason for people to worry about "weak IDEA keys" when
so many more pressing matters exist. (Let the experts
worry.) Little of this makes any real difference, just as
little of the stuff in daily newspapers is memorable or
deserves to be memorable.
- Second, "read the sources." Read "1984," "The Shockwave
Rider," "Atlas Shrugged," "True Names." Read the Chaum
article on making Big Brother obsolete (October 1985,
"Communications of the ACM").
- Third, don't lose sight of the core values: privacy,
technological solutions over legal solutions, avoiding
taxation, bypassing laws, etc. (Not everyone will agree
with all of these points.)
- Fourth, don't drown in the detail. Pick some areas of
interest and follow _them_. You may not need to know the
inner workings of DES or all the switches on PGP to make
contributions in other areas. (In fact, you surely don't.)
2.4.6. "Who are the Cypherpunks?"
- A mix of about 500-700
+ Can find out who by sending message to majordomo@toad.com
with the message body text "who cypherpunks" (no quotes, of
course).
- Is this a privacy flaw? Maybe.
- Lots of students (they have the time, the Internet
accounts). Lots of computer science/programming folks. Lots
of libertarians.
- quote from Wired article, and from "Whole Earth Review"
2.4.7. "Who runs the Cypherpunks?"
- Nobody. There's no formal "leadership." No ruler = no head
= an arch = anarchy. (Look up the etymology of anarchy.)
- However, the mailing list currently resides on a physical
machine, and this machine creates some nexus of control,
much like having a party at someon'e house. The list
administrator is currently Eric Hughes (and has been since
the beginning). He is helped by Hugh Daniel, who often does
maintenance of the toad.com, and by John Gilmore, who owns
the toad.com machine and account.
- In an extreme situation of abuse or neverending ranting,
these folks could kick someone off the list and block them
from resubscribing via majordomo. (I presume they could--
it's never happened.)
- To emphasize: nobody's ever been kicked off the list, so
far as I know. Not even Detweiler...he asked to be removed
(when the list subscribes were done manually).
- As to who sets policy, there is no policy! No charter, no
agenda, no action items. Just what people want to work on
themselves. Which is all that can be expected. (Some people
get frustrated at this lack of consensus, and they
sometimes start flaming and ranting about "Cypherpunks
never do anything," but this lack of consensus is to be
expected. Nobody's being paid, nobody's got hiring and
firing authority, so any work that gets done has to be
voluntary. Some volunteer groups are more organized than we
are, but there are other factors that make this more
possible for them than it is for us. C'est la vie.)
- Those who get heard on the mailing list, or in the physical
meetings, are those who write articles that people find
interesting or who say things of note. Sounds fair to me.
2.4.8. "Why don't the issues that interest me get discussed?"
- Maybe they already have been--several times. Many newcomers
are often chagrined to find arcane topics being discussed,
with little discussion of "the basics."
- This is hardly surprising....people get over the "basics"
after a few months and want to move on to more exciting (to
them) topics. All lists are like this.
- In any case, after you've read the list for a while--maybe
several weeks--go ahead and ask away. Making your topic
fresher may generate more responses than, say, asking
what's wrong with Clipper. (A truly overworked topic,
naturally.)
2.4.9. "How did the Cypherpunks group get started?"
2.4.10. "Where did the name 'Cypherpunks' come from?"
+ Jude Milhon, aka St. Jude, then an editor at "Mondo 2000,"
was at the earliest meetings...she quipped "You guys are
just a bunch of cypherpunks." The name was adopted
immediately.
- The 'cyberpunk' genre of science fiction often deals with
issues of cyberspace and computer security ("ice"), so
the link is natural. A point of confusion is that
cyberpunks are popularly thought of as, well, as "punks,"
while many Cyberpunks are frequently libertarians and
anarchists of various stripes. In my view, the two are
not in conflict.
- Some, however, would prefer a more staid name. The U.K.
branch calls itself the "U.K. Crypto Privacy
Association." <check this> However, the advantages of the
name are clear. For one thing, many people are bored by
staid names. For another, it gets us noticed by
journalists and others.
-
- We are actually not very "punkish" at all. About as punkish
as most of our cyberpunk cousins are, which is to say, not
very.
+ the name
- Crypto Cabal (this before the sci.crypt FAQ folks
appeared, I think), Crypto Liberation Front, other names
- not everybody likes the name...such is life
- 2.4. Organizational
- "How do I get on--and off--the Cypherpunks list?"
- Send a message to "cypherpunks-request@toad.com"
- Any auto-processed commands?
- don't send requests to the list as a whole....this will
mark you as "clueless"
- "Why does the Cypherpunks list sometimes go down, or lose the
subscription list?"
- The host machine, toad.com, owned by John Gilmore, has had
the usual problems such machines have: overloading,
shortages of disk space, software upgrades, etc. Hugh
Daniel has done an admirable job of keeping it in good
shape, but problems do occur.
- Think of it as warning that lists and communication systems
remain somewhat fragile....a lesson for what is needed to
make digital money more robust and trustable.
- There is no paid staff, no hardware budget for
improvements. The work done is strictly voluntarily.
- "If I've just joined the Cypherpunks list, what should I do?"
- Read for a while. Things will become clearer, themes will
emerge, and certain questions will be answered. This is
good advice for any group or list, and is especially so for
a list with 500 or more people on it. (We hit 700+ at one
point, then a couple of list outages knocked the number
down a bit.)
- Read the references mentioned here, if you can. The
sci.crypt FAQ should be read. And purchase Bruce Schneier's
"Applied Cryptography" the first chance you get.
- Join in on things that interest you, but don't make a fool
of yourself. Reputations matter, and you may come to regret
having come across as a tedious fool in your first weeks on
the list. (If you're a tedious fool after the first few
weeks, that may just be your nature, of course.)
- Avoid ranting and raving on unrelated topics, such as
abortion (pro or con), guns (pro or con), etc. The usual
topics that usually generate a lot of heat and not much
light. (Yes, most of us have strong views on these and
other topics, and, yes, we sometimes let our views creep
into discussions. There's no denying that certain
resonances exist. I'm just urging caution.)
- "I'm swamped by the list volume; what can I do?"
- This is a natural reaction. Nobody can follow it all; I
spend entirely too many hours a day reading the list, and I
certainly can't follow it all. Pick areas of expertise and
then follow them and ignore the rest. After all, not seeing
things on the list can be no worse than not even being
subscribed to the list!
- Hit the "delete" key quickly
- find someone who will digest it for you (Eric Hughes has
repeatedly said anyone can retransmit the list this way;
Hal Finney has offered an encrypted list)
+ Better mailers may help. Some people have used mail-to-news
systems and then read the list as a local newsgroup, with
threads.
- I have Eudora, which supports off-line reading and
sorting features, but I generally end up reading with an
online mail program (elm).
- The mailing list may someday be switched over to a
newsgroup, a la "alt.cypherpunks." (This may affect some
people whose sites do not carry alt groups.)
- "It's very easy to get lost in the morass of detail here. Are
there any ways to track what's *really* important?"
- First, a lot of the stuff posted in the Usenet newsgroups,
and on the Cypherpunks list, is peripheral stuff,
epiphenomenal cruft that will blow away in the first strong
breeze. Grungy details about PGP shells, about RSA
encryption speeds, about NSA supercomputers. There's just
no reason for people to worry about "weak IDEA keys" when
so many more pressing matters exist. (Let the experts
worry.) Little of this makes any real difference, just as
little of the stuff in daily newspapers is memorable or
deserves to be memorable.
- Second, "read the sources." Read "1984," "The Shockwave
Rider," "Atlas Shrugged," "True Names." Read the Chaum
article on making Big Brother obsolete (October 1985,
"Communications of the ACM").
- Third, don't lose sight of the core values: privacy,
technological solutions over legal solutions, avoiding
taxation, bypassing laws, etc. (Not everyone will agree
with all of these points.)
- Fourth, don't drown in the detail. Pick some areas of
interest and follow _them_. You may not need to know the
inner workings of DES or all the switches on PGP to make
contributions in other areas. (In fact, you surely don't.)
- "Who are the Cypherpunks?"
- A mix of about 500-700
+ Can find out who by sending message to majordomo@toad.com
with the message body text "who cypherpunks" (no quotes, of
course).
- Is this a privacy flaw? Maybe.
- Lots of students (they have the time, the Internet
accounts). Lots of computer science/programming folks. Lots
of libertarians.
- quote from Wired article, and from "Whole Earth Review"
- "Who runs the Cypherpunks?"
- Nobody. There's no formal "leadership." No ruler = no head
= an arch = anarchy. (Look up the etymology of anarchy.)
- However, the mailing list currently resides on a physical
machine, and this machine creates some nexus of control,
much like having a party at someon'e house. The list
administrator is currently Eric Hughes (and has been since
the beginning). He is helped by Hugh Daniel, who often does
maintenance of the toad.com, and by John Gilmore, who owns
the toad.com machine and account.
- In an extreme situation of abuse or neverending ranting,
these folks could kick someone off the list and block them
from resubscribing via majordomo. (I presume they could--
it's never happened.)
- To emphasize: nobody's ever been kicked off the list, so
far as I know. Not even Detweiler...he asked to be removed
(when the list subscribes were done manually).
- As to who sets policy, there is no policy! No charter, no
agenda, no action items. Just what people want to work on
themselves. Which is all that can be expected. (Some people
get frustrated at this lack of consensus, and they
sometimes start flaming and ranting about "Cypherpunks
never do anything," but this lack of consensus is to be
expected. Nobody's being paid, nobody's got hiring and
firing authority, so any work that gets done has to be
voluntary. Some volunteer groups are more organized than we
are, but there are other factors that make this more
possible for them than it is for us. C'est la vie.)
- Those who get heard on the mailing list, or in the physical
meetings, are those who write articles that people find
interesting or who say things of note. Sounds fair to me.
- "Why don't the issues that interest me get discussed?"
- Maybe they already have been--several times. Many newcomers
are often chagrined to find arcane topics being discussed,
with little discussion of "the basics."
- This is hardly surprising....people get over the "basics"
after a few months and want to move on to more exciting (to
them) topics. All lists are like this.
- In any case, after you've read the list for a while--maybe
several weeks--go ahead and ask away. Making your topic
fresher may generate more responses than, say, asking
what's wrong with Clipper. (A truly overworked topic,
naturally.)
- "How did the Cypherpunks group get started?"
- "Where did the name 'Cypherpunks' come from?"
+ Jude Milhon, aka St. Jude, then an editor at "Mondo 2000,"
was at the earliest meetings...she quipped "You guys are
just a bunch of cypherpunks." The name was adopted
immediately.
- The 'cyberpunk' genre of science fiction often deals with
issues of cyberspace and computer security ("ice"), so
the link is natural. A point of confusion is that
cyberpunks are popularly thought of as, well, as "punks,"
while many Cyberpunks are frequently libertarians and
anarchists of various stripes. In my view, the two are
not in conflict.
- Some, however, would prefer a more staid name. The U.K.
branch calls itself the "U.K. Crypto Privacy
Association." <check this> However, the advantages of the
name are clear. For one thing, many people are bored by
staid names. For another, it gets us noticed by
journalists and others.
- We are actually not very "punkish" at all. About as punkish
as most of our cyberpunk cousins are, which is to say, not
very.
+ the name
- Crypto Cabal (this before the sci.crypt FAQ folks
appeared, I think), Crypto Liberation Front, other names
- not everybody likes the name...such is life
## Partially completed FAQ section
2.4.11. "Why doesn't the Cypherpunks group have announced goals,
ideologies, and plans?"
- The short answer: we're just a mailing list, a loose