Timothy C. May


As an Intel engineer, he solved the “alpha particle problem” which affected the reliability of integrated circuits at microchip scales.

He’s discussed here as a founding member of the Cypherpunk Mailing list. As the author of the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto and the Cyphernomicon (the mailing list FAQ), he is one of the key figures who really distilled the core philosophy of the list.

From wikipedia:

Timothy C. May, better known as Tim May, is an American technical and political writer, and was an electronic engineer and senior scientist at Intel in the company’s early history. He retired in 2003.

May was a founding member of, and has been one of the most voluminous contributors to, Cypherpunks electronic mailing list. He wrote extensively on cryptography and privacy from the 1990s through 2003.

May wrote a substantial cypherpunk-themed FAQ, “The Cyphernomicon” (incorporating his earlier piece “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto”), and his essay “True Nyms and Crypto Anarchy” was included in a reprint of Vernor Vinge’s novel True Names. In 2001 his work was published in the book Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias.

Quotes

From the Crypto-Anarchist Manifesto

A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy.

Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

His email signature

Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.

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Please note that the information presented on this site was composed from publicly available materials in mainly 2017 and 2018 and has not been significantly updated since.

The information presented here may be significantly out of date or even inaccurate. In the case of inaccuracy, please file an Issue in the GitHub repo. The site should not be used as a source of truth.