I have a friend, even though I haven't talked to him in 25 years. I haven't seen or talked to him in these years because he chose to become a phantom. I suppose that a little back story is called for.

We were roommates at Texas A&M, I suppose that is overstating the fact. He spent most of his time in the computer building, in fact our apartment was where he showed himself once a week to take a shower. He was a mathematician beginning to develop a passion for the computer. Now, this was long before a computer fit on a desktop. Fact was, that what I have on my desk and am typing on took an entire building to house the equivalent computing power. The Apollo landers that made the trip to the moon had less computing power than the cell phones that most people carry personally today. The idea that the computer would occupy the position of use that it occupies now in our culture was not even imagined.

I arrived home one night and the phone was ringing, he was on the other end and was frantic. Could I bring him some notes of his, scribblings that were in a pile under some clothes in his closet, and bring them immediately to him at the computer building. Nothing more, but I could hear the excitement in his voice. I found the notes and proceeded to the campus and the computer lab. On my arrival I learned of the Apollo 13 problems, and the notes were some ideas he had for linking computers over the telephone lines that he had once brainstormed with a colleague from Cornell. Hallucinatory drugs were involved at the time, but it was still a good idea inspite of and maybe because of. Who can say? I wonder how many visionaries have had their insights through what we commonly refer to as hallucinating?

The A&M computers were not going to be fast enough to perform all the calculations necessary and these notes were an idea for doing a linkup between two computers of A&M and Cornell combing their respective powers into one. Now this is possible today by anyone, but at this time it had never even been thought of.

I was a confirmed adrenaline junkie so I hung around while they tried and it worked. All of the calculations for the navigation for the aborted mission were done by a linkup that had never been done before. He explained to me that the number of calculations performed would have taken a 1000 engineers with slide rules, working 24 hours a day approximately 2 years to do.

We stayed friends and in time he became quite wealthy writing the software that made the concept of remote banking possible. I'm saying all of this to paint a picture of normal. The truth is nothing was farther from the truth. The idea of normal could only be applied in the context of cryptographers. I don't know if you know one or not, if you do, you understand. If you don't, then all I can say is that combining brilliant with paranoia and a knowledge of what is possible can make for some interesting people.

He became a phantom for the sole purpose of positioning himself for the future he saw. He told me that he had designed a program for the NSA that monitored all of the phone calls in the U.S. (that was in the eighties). He claimed that the telephone companies and the government were " in bed" together and that the internet would end up in the hands of those corporate giants and that democracy itself was in danger because electronic voting was going to become the norm. He maintained that no computer in the world was beyond being hacked and that we would never be able to trust the outcome of our elections. He stated that his purpose in becoming a "ghost" was, for the time these came true. In which case he was going to do his best to bring it all down and was going to spend his life and fortune preparing for just such a scenario.

Everything he predicted is coming true. The corporate interests have taken billions in tax breaks with the promise to build a high speed network. They have taken the money but no network and they are holding us hostage by insisting that they have control of the internet. One of the chief fund raisers for Bush owns Diebold, which is the main supplier of electronic voting machines and the idea that our phone calls are being listened to seems like business as usual!

I sometimes can not tell the difference between visionaries, conspiracy advocates and even raving lunatics. There appears to be only a very fine line separating one from another. I know my friend, wherever he is meets every socially correct criteria for a judgement of "nut". Be a little kind and accepting when you encounter your next. They might be a visionary, they might be a friend of mine. Besides, the knowledge that he is out there and just might be able to pull off the crash of the whole system never fails to bring a smile to my face.