Dr Washington Sanchez
parent
c7293737ba
commit
32307d84db
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,186 @@
|
|||
20. README
|
||||
|
||||
20.1. 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.
|
||||
|
||||
20.2. README--BRIEF VERSION
|
||||
20.2.1. Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved. For what it's
|
||||
worth.
|
||||
20.2.2. Apologies in advance for the mix of styles (outline, bullet,
|
||||
text, essays), for fragments and incomplete sections. This
|
||||
FAQ is already much too long and detailed, and writing
|
||||
suitable connective material, introductions, summaries, etc.
|
||||
is not in the cards anytime soon. Go with the flow, use your
|
||||
text searching tools, and deal with it.
|
||||
20.2.3. Substantive corrections welcome, quibbles less welcome, and
|
||||
ideological debate even less welcome. Corrections to outdated
|
||||
information, especially on pointers to information, will be
|
||||
most appreciated.
|
||||
|
||||
20.3. Copyright Comments
|
||||
20.3.1. It may seem illogical for a Cypherpunk to assert some kind of
|
||||
copyright. Perhaps. But my main concern is the ease with
|
||||
which people can relabel documents as their own, sometimes
|
||||
after only adding a few words here and there.
|
||||
20.3.2. Yes, I used the words of others in places, to make points
|
||||
better than I felt my own words would, to save time, and to
|
||||
give readers a different voice speaking on issues. I have
|
||||
credited quotes with a "[Joe Foobar, place, date]
|
||||
attribution, usually at the end of the quote. If a place is
|
||||
not listed, it is the Cypherpunks list itself. The author and
|
||||
date should be sufficient to (someday) retrieve the source
|
||||
text. By the way, I used quotes as they seemed appropriate,
|
||||
and make no claims that the quoted points are necessarily
|
||||
original to the author--who may have remembered them from
|
||||
somewhere else--or that the date listed is the origination
|
||||
date for the point. I have something like 80 megabytes of
|
||||
Cypherpunks posts, so I couldn't do an archaeological dig for
|
||||
the earliest mention of an idea.
|
||||
20.3.3. People can quote this FAQ under the "fair use" provisions,
|
||||
e.g., a paragraph or two, with credits. Anything more than a
|
||||
few paragraphs constitutes copyright infringement, as I
|
||||
understand it.
|
||||
20.3.4. Should I give up the maintaining of this FAQ and/or should
|
||||
others get involved, then the normal co-authorship and
|
||||
inheritance arrangements will be possible.
|
||||
20.3.5. The Web. WWW and Mosaic offer amazing new opportunities for
|
||||
on-line documents. It is in fact likely that this FAQ will be
|
||||
available as a Web document. My concern, however, is that the
|
||||
integrity and authorship be maintained. Thus, splitting the
|
||||
document in a hundred or more little pieces, with no
|
||||
authorship attached, would not be cool. Also, I intend to
|
||||
maintain this document with my powerful outlining tools
|
||||
(Symantec's "MORE," on a Macintosh) and thus anyone who
|
||||
"freezes" the document and uses it as a base for links,
|
||||
pointers, etc., will be left behind as mods are made.
|
||||
|
||||
20.4. A Few Words on the Style
|
||||
20.4.1. Some sections are in outline form
|
||||
- like this
|
||||
- with fragments of ideas and points
|
||||
- with incomplete sentences
|
||||
- and with lists of points that are obviously only starting
|
||||
points for more complete analyses
|
||||
20.4.2. Other sections are written in more complete essay form, as
|
||||
reasonably self-contained analyses of some point or topic.
|
||||
Like this. Some of these essays were taken directly out of
|
||||
posts I did for the list, or for sci.crypt, and no
|
||||
attribution H (since I wrote the stuff...quotes from others
|
||||
are credited).
|
||||
20.4.3. The styles may clash, but I just don't have the hundreds of
|
||||
hours to go through and "regularize" everything to a
|
||||
consistent style. The outline style allows additional points,
|
||||
wrinkles, rebuttals, and elaborations to be grafted on easily
|
||||
(if not always elegantly). I hope most readers can understand
|
||||
this and learn to deal with it.
|
||||
20.4.4. Of course, there are places where the points made are just
|
||||
too fragmentary, too outlinish, for people to make sense of.
|
||||
I've tried to clean these up as much as I can, but there will
|
||||
always be some places where an idea seemed clear to me at the
|
||||
time (maybe not) but which is not presented clearly to
|
||||
others. I'll keep trying to iron these kinks out in future
|
||||
versions.
|
||||
20.4.5. Comment on style
|
||||
- In many cases I merged two or more chunks of ideas into one
|
||||
section, resulting in many cases in mismatching writing
|
||||
styles, tenses, etc. I apologize, but I just don't have the
|
||||
many dozens of hours it might take to go through and
|
||||
"regularize" things, to write more graceful transition
|
||||
paragraphs, etc. I felt it was more important to get the
|
||||
ideas and idea fragments out than to polish the writing.
|
||||
(Essays written from scratch, and in order, are generally
|
||||
more graceful than are concatenations of ideas, facts,
|
||||
pointers, and the like.)
|
||||
- Readers should also not assume that a "fleshed-out"
|
||||
section, made up of relatively complete paragraphs, is any
|
||||
more important than a section that is still mostly made up
|
||||
of short one-liners.
|
||||
- References to Crypto Journals, Books. Nearly every section
|
||||
in this document _could have_ one or more references to
|
||||
articles and papers in the Crypto Proceedings, in
|
||||
Schneier's book, or whatever. Sorry, but I can't do this.
|
||||
Maybe someday--when true hypertext arrives and is readily
|
||||
usable (don't send me e-mail about HTML, or Xanadu, etc.)
|
||||
this kind of cross-referencing will be done. Footnotes
|
||||
would work today, but are distracting in on-line documents.
|
||||
And too much work, given that this is not meant to be a
|
||||
scholarly thesis.
|
||||
- I also have resisted the impulse to included quotes or
|
||||
sections from other FAQs, notably the sci.crypt and rsadsi
|
||||
FAQs. No point in copying their stuff, even with
|
||||
appropriate credit. Readers should already have these docs,
|
||||
of course.
|
||||
20.4.6. quibbling
|
||||
- Any time you say something to 500-700 people, expect to
|
||||
have a bunch of quibbles. People will take issue with
|
||||
phrasings, with choices of definitions, with facts, etc.
|
||||
Correctness is important, but sometimes the quibbling sets
|
||||
off a chain reaction of corrections, countercorrections,
|
||||
rebuttals, and "I would have put it differently"s. It's all
|
||||
a bit overwhelming at times. My hope for this FAQ is that
|
||||
serious errors are (of course) corrected, but that the List
|
||||
not get bogged down in endless quibbling about such minor
|
||||
issues as style and phrasing.
|
||||
|
||||
20.5. How to Find Information
|
||||
20.5.1. This FAQ is very long, which makes finding specific questions
|
||||
problematic. Such is life--shorter FAQ are of course easier
|
||||
to navigate, but may not address important issues.
|
||||
20.5.2. A full version of this FAQ is available, as well as chapter-
|
||||
by-chapter versions (to reduce the downloading efforts for
|
||||
some people). Search tools within text editors are one way to
|
||||
find topics. Future versions of this FAQ may be paginated and
|
||||
then indexed (but maybe not).
|
||||
20.5.3. I advise using search tools in editors and word processors to
|
||||
find sections of interest. This is likely faster anyway than
|
||||
consulting an index generated by me (which I haven't
|
||||
generated, and probably never will).
|
||||
|
||||
20.6. My Views
|
||||
20.6.1. This FAQ, or whatever one calls it, is more than just a
|
||||
simple listing of frequently asked questions and the lowest-
|
||||
common-denominator answers. This should be clear just by the
|
||||
size alone. I make no apologies for writing the document I
|
||||
wanted to write. Others are free to write the FAQ they would
|
||||
prefer to read. You're getting what you paid for.
|
||||
20.6.2. My views are rather strong in some areas. I've tried to
|
||||
present some dissenting arguments in cases where I think
|
||||
Cypherpunks are really somewhat divided, such as in remailer
|
||||
strategies and the like. In cases where I think there's no
|
||||
credible dissent, such as in the wisdom of Clipper, I've made
|
||||
no attempt to be fair. My libertarian, even anarchist, views
|
||||
surely come through. Either deal with it, or don't read the
|
||||
document. I have to be honest about this.
|
||||
|
||||
20.7. More detailed disclaimer
|
||||
20.7.1. This detailed disclaimer is probably not good in most courts
|
||||
in the U.S., contracts having been thrown out if favor of
|
||||
nominalism, but here it is anyway. At least nobody can claim
|
||||
they were misled into thinking I was giving them warranteed,
|
||||
guaranteed advice.
|
||||
20.7.2. Timothy C. May hereby disclaims all warranties relating to
|
||||
this document, whether express or implied, including without
|
||||
limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or
|
||||
fitness for a particular purpose. Tim May will not be liable
|
||||
for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or
|
||||
similar damages due to loss of business, indictment for any
|
||||
crime, imprisonment, torture, or any other reason, even if
|
||||
Tim May or an agent of his has been advised of the
|
||||
possibility of such damages. In no event shall Tim May be
|
||||
liable for any damages, regardless of the form of the claim.
|
||||
The person reading or using the document bears all risk as to
|
||||
the quality and suitability of the document. Legality of
|
||||
reading or possessing this document in a jurisdiction is not
|
||||
the responsibility of Tim May.
|
||||
20.7.3. The points expressed may or may not represent the views of
|
||||
Tim May, and certainly may not represent the views of other
|
||||
Cypherpunks. Certain ideas are explored which, if
|
||||
implemented, would be illegal to various extents in most
|
||||
countries in the world. Think of these explorations of ideas
|
||||
as just that.
|
||||
|
||||
20.8. I've decided to release this before the RSA patents run out...
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue