John L. Young, 89, dies. The pioneer publishing online classified documents
John L. Young, who used his experience as an architect to surprise the computer to help build CryptomeIt is a vast library of sensitive documents that preceded WikiLeaks, in some respects, which surpassed it in its approach that does not have a celebration in exposing the government’s secrets, on March 28 in a rehabilitation facility in Manhattan. It was 89.
His wife, Deborah Natysius, said that his death, which was not widely reported at the time, was a complication of lymphoma in the major cells other than Hodgkin.
Cryptome, presented by Mr. Young and Mrs. Natsios, the daughter of the CIA officer, founded in 1996, introduces an absorption bag from the leakage and ambiguity public domain documents, presented in a reverse time arrangement and in a nude screen, and an introduction to the courier, as if it was written on the representative.
The 70,000 documents on the site apparently range from the non -harmful index – a catalog from the National Intelligence University – to the clear secret: over the years, Mr. Young revealed the identities of hundreds of intelligence agents in the United States, Britain and Japan.
“I am fierce opponents of the government’s secrets of all kinds,” He told Associated Press in 2013. “The scale is distinguished so far in the other direction, as I am ready to cancel my neck and say that there should be nothing.”
Although he received frequent visits from the FBI and his Internet service providers, they sometimes cut off his website for fear of legal tangles, but a crime was not charged, and Cryptome was always soon online.
Cryptome Wikileaks and other anti -exit sites preceded a decade. Although Mr. Yong was an early supporter of Wikileaks, and even participated in his field registration, he became a critic of his leader, Julian Assange, who said he is very focused on his scenes and is very ready to stimulate certain information.
On the contrary, Mr. Young was pure: as long as the document was not a fraud, this happened in Cryptome. He said that although Mr. Assange considers himself a journalist, he thought about himself as wealthy, while maintaining a wide range of information but not responsible for his contents.
Mr. Young maintained a previous radicalism in the sixties of the last century, and Mr. Young maintained health-some may say excessive-warning towards the government. Journalists often told that they believed they were spies and accused former friends of being dual agents.
Armed with degrees in philosophy and architecture, spent the seventies leading a non -profit organization design in New York, the urban deadline, which built things like “schools” in the streets in low -income neighborhoods.
In the eighties of the last century, he specialized in ensuring that the systems and structures of the building were reaching a symbol – a work compared to the Cryptome mission.
“We are wanted by state laws as architects for police issues in public health, safety and welfare,”, He told the site deputy site in 2014. “This is in the name of the public good. From the perspective of Cryptome, we are obligated as engineers of the police engineers, if you will. We are obligated to the opposition, as required for the public good.”
Mr. Young was early design with the help of the computer, which in turn raised his interest in discussions about the digital privacy that began to take place in the late eighties, where developments in wireless and wireless communications raised questions about the government’s monopoly on encryption tools.
Mr. Young joined the postal list of CypherPunksA loose group of infiltrators and programmers intends to open the Internet and verify government efforts to monitor online traffic.
At that time, most government documents were still in a paper copy only. Mr. Yong Master had a free width for anyone who wanted to leak secret papers online – a service that he and Mrs. Natsius ultimately to Cryptome.
Sinzy Cohen, Executive Director, told Electronic Borders CorporationIt is a non -profit institution that defends civil freedoms in the digital world.
Mr. Young was not without his critics. Even his fans said that his lack of desire to consider national security interests when publishing online documents may be unreasonable.
But it was reported that if there was anything, then he would help the government.
“If you know weakness and offer it, do not hide it,” he told Associated Press.
John Lee Young was born on December 22, 1935, in Melrzevio, a small town in central Texas. His mother, Beatrice (Rhodes) Young, was supervised by the house, and his father, Europe Young, was a mobile construction worker. They divorced when John was young, and spent his childhood to live with different relatives throughout the state.
After leaving the school at the age of fourteen, he spent three years in different jobs – the choice of cotton, and there are religious symbols, and he sold Fuller brushes from door to door – before joining the American army in 1953.
He was appointed to the Engineers Corps in Germany. He spent his spare time travel throughout Europe, and took the vast architectural heritage on the continent.
In 1956, despite his lack of high school, Mr. Young entered the college in Texas Tech. He moved to Rice University in Houston and graduated in 1963 with scientific degrees in philosophy and architecture. Then he worked on historical memorization projects throughout the city.
He arrived at Columbia University in 1967 to follow a master’s degree in the new historical memorization program at the Architecture School.
A year later, he joined dozens of students in the occupation of Afeiri Hall, which is the main building building of the university, during the campus protests against Colombia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Plans of a new gym In Harlem.
Although he became a leader of the demonstrators, he was not expelled and graduated in 1969.
Mr. Young’s first wife, Martha (Calhun), died in 1968, and left him to raise their four children. His second marriage, for Margori Hug, ended in divorce. Mrs. Natsius met in 1990; They got married in 1998.
Along with her, he survived three children from his first marriage, Marquol, Lillek and Anna Young, as well as two grandchildren. His daughter Dara also died of his first marriage, earlier. He lived in Manhattan.
Mr. Young did not stop practicing architecture, even after he established Cryptome. He and Mrs. Natssseos partially kept the site to save time and money; He insisted that it took only a few hours of work per week, and about 2000 dollars per year, to keep it.
He insisted on this, a public service, and the way to return the favor.
“The thing that made the Internet,” the nineties and early first decade of the twentieth century were people like John Young, “said Ms. Cohen, who appeared somewhat and began making interesting, useful and important things and were stubborn enough to achieve them.”