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. ------------------------8< cut here >8------------------------ 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 >8------------------------------------------------8< cut here