I posted this intro to the project to cypherpunks@toad.com today, June 21,
1994, and a happy solstice to all...
OK (type a command or type opt for Options): m cypherpunks@toad.com
rusirius
Subject: HOW TO MUTATE AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD
Please write to me personally if you want to express indignation at
this posting. It's not an ad: it's an invitation to culture hacking,
okay? And write to me personally if it interests you.
I, Judith Milhon, am not a fink. I was at the first meating of this
weird coalescence. I even thought up the name "cypherpunk." I write
tech humor, I'm a good editor, I used to program under Unix, okay? My
bona fides can be verified by several on this list; write me for
references. I have a contract with Ballantine Books, bless their
stingy but experimental hearts, to compile with R U Sirius a hack/prank
book called HOW TO MUTATE AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD. You are invited to
write yourself in as a character. We want to present the cypherpunk
movement in its own words, with its own cast of characters, as
themselves or as their pseudonyms. If you want to buckle a swash with
impunity, you can hide your identity even from me. You know how.
If you have the time to change the world a little, this is a
magnificent propaganda opportunity. Rant! Issue underground
manifestos! Start your own cell of an international hack/phreak/prank
Underground. Conceive and dedicate amazing hacks! Write the future
your way!
The book is a scrapbook of media reportage, DIY manuals and email
commentary starting way back in 1994 and continuing till 2001, at which
time the world ends in a nanotech industrial accident. If you're
interested, write me and I'll send you the year by year timeline, as
HADL, the Human Anti-Degradation League [this ad degrades women. This
article degrades children. And THIS degrades...] forces the gobliment
to crack down on speech in the society at large, and btw succeeds in
censoring the Internet, in response to which an entirely virtual
Underground appears overnight, one that you can join as easy as you can
say... F S P. Bam FSP sites that appear and disappear within hours, on
hacked Internet sites, distribute crypto programs and anarchist
cookbook-style hacking info; and pirate TV interrupts our regularly
scheduled broadcast to bring you today's edresses for these sites (and
also very slick computer-animated ads for Stego and bogus ads for
parodic nonproducts and on and on and on... The issues are privacy and
censorship, the hacker mindset, Dada revolution, media pranking, etc
etc etc. Write your own!
At minimum it will be fun, and will even pay minimal $$ -- like a
few-cent word rate.
R U came up with these, but you can whomp up your own identity:
MUTATE CHARACTERS/ROLES:
TECHNICAL
You're a how-to, hands-on phreaker, intruder or media pirate and can
draw DIY circuit diagrams, maps and step-by-step instructions.
TECHNO-REVOLUTIONISTS
You are a born anarchist hacker rhetorician w. enough techno knowledge
to monkey wrench a bit in the digital realm.
You're a black post-riot grrrrl, Sub Rosa, with the most popular online
pirate multimedia show in the world.
You are a generalist hacker/cracker who can write technical material
and engage in colorful email exchanges.
You're a vile revolutionary psycho into media piracy advocating direct
technological attacks on the government
You are a hacker genius who can figure out ways to do things that
simply can't be done, and talk about them in a reasonably accessible
way. Or maybe you're the near-cartoon brilliant NERD, living the
Vampire shift on caffeine and canned corn. With an entirely fictoidal
posse of nastyass teeners with whom you concoct horrid pranks. Etc
etc.
THE "MAN"
You are a puritanical nut who likes to write personal threat notes
You write official statements for the forces of purity and repression
You're Vice-President Tipper Gore, a HADL fellow traveler, on a
rampage.
JOURNALISTS
You are good at compiling data on a subject and making it readable.
You are a mainstream journalist or a techno-newsletter writer or both
...with Extropian tendencies.
...into Media Piracy.
You are a detail-oriented hard-tech journalist with wit and style
You are a detail-oriented science writer specializing in biotech, with
wit and style
You're a business journalist.
You're a serious mainstream journalist with a left-liberal agenda
monitoring social and cultural trends
You're a Goddess-pagan oriented writer ready to shill for a religion
based on bodily fluids.
You're a Gonzo "rock" culture journalist of the wickedest sort!!
You are a music/art writer/critic with a good sense of the ludicrous.
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Write to me, flame me, whatever. This is a chance for you to engage in
some cultural monkey-wrenching, at least...
Judith Milhon, aka stjude@well.sf.ca.us
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