Farewell St. Jude (ex Mondo 2000).

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31.07.03 Farewell St. Jude (ex Mondo 2000).


Mondo 2000 was the magazine which literally opened the Pandora’s box of new technologies, much earlier than the others. Granted, it was written with the typical american enthusiasm, but at the same time it attempted one of the first disillusioned pop critiques of the deluded theory that stated that the spreading of new media was bound to bring on a massive social improvement. St. Jude (whose real name was Jude Milhon) was the Senior Editor of Mondo 2000 and she, an expert professional system administrator, wrote many enlightened pieces, always in her characteristic sarcastic tone, before passing away a few days ago. A sophisticated character, with a strong political background, she entered the world of computer programming in the Sixties, fought political battles in her own way and advocated ideals of freedom borrowed from the most active hackers. She invented the term ‘cypherpunk’, which has since then identified a large group of people keen on cryptography. Subtle leader writer, with a fine sense of humor, she has always been fascinated by ‘nerds’ and by a social vision where they roamed freely using their intelligence to gain access to the right resources. In a short interview published in the book ‘Net Chick’, talking about her newly published satyrical book titled ‘The Cyberpunk Handbook – The Cyberpunk Fakebook’, she said: “I hope that thousands of twelve-year-olds will be corrupted by my book and will transform their lives through not-exactly-legal actions, carried out with extreme discretion and intelligence…”