In Memoriam: John L. Young, Cryptome Co-Founder

This is sad. I met him. Cryptome had an electric effect on me the first time I came across it - it was a leaked (?) gsm A3A8 authentication + session key generation algorithm document. I was fiercely interested in that at the time. I then started following cryptome near-religiously and one time, when I happened to be in NYC, arranged in in-person-meet with John Young so I could buy some copies of his cd archive, signed. I gave one or two away to friends. He joked that his hat was “hiding his lobotomy scars” (I think). Was short but special real life meeting.

This reminds me that you have to be a little crazy to resist some of the most powerful forces in our world. You basically have to say, I'm willing to sacrifice my life, be willing to be thrown in jail, be bankrupted, etc, just to keep people informed. There's no personal benefit here. And nobody's going to stop him on the street and thank him for keeping the powerful honest. In today's world, we definitely need more crazies for good. (And we need more organizations formed to help protect them!)

Fun side note: he accepted straight cash in the mail, but never accepted cryptocurrency as an option for donations. He was quite old school.<p>R.I.P. John L. Young

Classy obiturary by the EFF. Cryptome seems to have been around forever in internet terms - I just checked and indeed it&#x27;s been almost 30 years. RIP John, your site was Wikileaks long before Wikileaks.

I miss the sense of possibility, anarchy, and resistance of the early internet. RIP.

As a 90s teenager, cryptome.org was an incredible view into the hidden parts of the society. It&#x27;s where I learned about Echelon surveillance years before its existance was admitted, numbers stations, crypto, spy networks, intermingled with all sorts of other &quot;out there&quot; conspiracy stuff (aliens, Area 51, JFK assassination). It was a pretty key part of the wild wild west of the early web for me. Amazing that the page layout still looks about the same as I remember. RIP.

I haven&#x27;t visited the site in years but remember reading it every week back in the 90&#x27;s, early 2000&#x27;s. What I recall thinking was how it put th USA &quot;freedoms&quot; into sharp perspective compared to most of the rest of the world, including the UK (where I was). Some of the things he posted (the &quot;eye-balling&quot; secret sites, for instance) were things he&#x27;d be in jail for elsewhere. Or worse. Brave guy and it took some gumption.

You can see all the secrets clearly now, Mr Young, and work with certainty, in a place with walls made of truth and honor, where lies are distant dreams.

RIP. I knew he had to have been pretty old. No idea if Cryptome has been active in recent years. I got their database dump on DVD back when it would still fit on one. No idea where it is now. He did good and he had guts of steel.

what&#x27;s the best way at this point to get the Cryptome Archive? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cryptome.org&#x2F;cryptome-archive.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cryptome.org&#x2F;cryptome-archive.htm</a>

Never met him, but the Gentle person&#x27;s guide to forum spies on cryptome blew open my worldview in terms of expanding my awareness to include the fact that manipulating the apparent through technological means was an organizationally feasible means of manipulation.<p>I&#x27;ve not been sure whether to hate having stumbled upon it, or be grateful. I&#x27;m probably not as healthy as I could be for having crossed paths with his post; I can&#x27;t deny that lessons I took from that has served me well over the past decade, and allowed me to punch up for knowing what was going on. So requiescat in pace, J. Young. I&#x27;ll do my damnedest to keep the signal alive.

Oh shit!<p>I went to cryptome just last week and was going to order an updated USB.<p>The page says he was an early founder, but from memory John actually was the one to register and pay for wikileaks.org<p>He was a really nice guy and was 100% about transparency, even when he made mistakes, he never covered it up like others would have.<p>Genuine and always open to criticism.

oh wow, a true legend. RIP John.

Quite shocked. And sad it took this long to be talked about in memoriam.<p>Cryptome was like an indie bookstore, around forever, eclectic and felt like a corner of the web you could go to get away from it all.<p>A biography of their work - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;natsios-young.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;natsios-young.org&#x2F;</a><p>This day is missing from the 2004 Daily Show torrents - &quot;Young, John. Feature, The Daily Show With John Stewart (16 August 2004)&quot; It&#x27;s a decaying web.

John Young was every inch an example. He took time for anyone. Cryptome was the very best thing the internet could be.

Deserves a black bar!