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Vince Cate

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Vincent Aron Cate(born 1963) is a cryptography software developer based inAnguilla.He graduated from theUniversity of California, Berkeleyand ran an Atari hardware business in the 1980s before beginning a Ph.D. programme atCarnegie Mellon University,but dropped out and moved toAnguillato pursue business opportunities there. In his new home, he would go on to establish an internet service provider, acomputer clubfor young students, and an annual cryptography conference. Aformer U.S. citizen,hegave up his U.S. citizenshipin 1998 in protest ofU.S. laws on the export of cryptography.

Career

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In the early 1980s, Cate lived inSan Jose, California,where he ran a business producing software and hardware to interfaceCP/M-compatible printers, disk drives, and keyboards withAtaricomputers such as theAtari 400.This allowed CP/M system owners considering the purchase of an Atari computer to save on the cost of peripherals for their new computer.[1][2]Cate graduated from theUniversity of California, Berkeleyand later enrolled as a doctoral student atCarnegie Mellon University,where he did research onfile systemswith Thomas Gross, and also worked on allowing remote file systems to be mounted overFTP.However, with the rise of the Internet, Cate lost interest in his research and left the universitywithout completing his dissertation,receiving a master's degree.[3][4]

In 1994, Cate moved to theBritish Overseas TerritoryofAnguillato pursue business opportunities.[3]He was attracted to Anguilla for several reasons, including the tropical climate, low taxes, and stable government compared to other Caribbean countries and territories. As he stated in an interview, "The country has many of the characteristics of a small town in the USA. Seems like everyone knows everyone... [but] I could not imagine too many towns of 10,000 in the US having this much computer infrastructure."[5]

At first, Cate attempted to start anelectronic moneybusiness. However, in those early years, local banks were wary of Cate's business model, which involved accepting credit cards over the Internet, and so instead he started aninternet service provider,offeringdial-up Internet accessto island residents.[3]Eventually, Cate's company, Offshore Information Services, expanded from the ISP business to offercompany formationservices, aimed at helping clients operate e-commerce businesses in Anguilla. OIS' servers ran software fromC2Net,one of the early supporters ofTransport Layer Security,in order to allow clients to offer secure online transactions to their customers.[6]OIS also sold cryptographic software aimed at end-users in the finance sector.[7]One motivation of Cate's work was to provide a haven from increasinginternet censorship in China,in France,Germany,and theUnited States;he mentioned the U.S.'Communications Decency Actof 1996 as an issue of major concern to him.[7][8]His work prompted comparisons to theBruce SterlingnovelIslands in the Net.[5]

Other activities

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Outside of his work in Anguilla, Cate also started a computer club which helped schools in Anguilla acquire donations of old computers for the use of their students; he described it as his "best source of talent searching", and by 1998 had hired three members of the computer club for his own business.[9]

In 1997, Cate collaborated with cypherpunkRobert HettingaandMassachusetts Institute of Technologyresearcher Rafael Hirschfield to organise the International Conference on Financial Cryptography.[3]Presenters at the first conference includedRon Rivest.[10]The conference was highly successful, though the list of famous presenters was not the sole contributing factor: presentations were all scheduled for the morning hours, allowing participants to enjoy the beaches in the afternoon.[3]

Since the 1990s, Cate has also been involved with the administration of.ai,Anguilla'scountry code top-level domain.[11][12]

Political views

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Cate engaged incivil disobedienceagainst U.S. cryptography policy by setting up a webpage inviting readers to "become an international arms trafficker in one click". The page contained anHTML formwhich, when submitted, would e-mail three lines ofPerlcode implementing theRSApublic-key encryption algorithm to a server in Anguilla; this could have qualified as unlicensed export of munitions under U.S. law at the time. Visitors could opt to have their names and e-mail addresses displayed publicly in a list on that page. By 1997, the list contained the names or aliases of more than one thousand visitors; that number grew to nearly seven thousand by September 1998.[13][14]

In September 1998 Cate took his protests a step further, paying $5,000 to naturalise as a citizen ofMozambiqueand then giving up his U.S. citizenship. (He would have had to wait for more than a decade longer to qualify for naturalisation as aBritish Overseas Territories citizenwith AnguillaBelonger status.) Cate stated in that he was motivated by the desire "to be free from the silly U.S. laws on crypto", and that by giving up citizenship "[t]here's less chance of getting in any trouble with the U.S. government and there's also less chance of getting shot by a terrorist."[9]In April 1999, a notice confirming his loss of U.S. citizenship was published in theFederal Registeras required by theHealth Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.[15]

Publications

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  • Cate, Vincent; Gross, Thomas (1991). "Combining the concepts of compression and caching for a two-level filesystem".Operating Systems Review.25:200–211.doi:10.1145/106974.106993.

References

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  1. ^Mace, Scott (26 July 1982)."Interface puts Atari programs on CP/M systems".InfoWorld.p. 26.Retrieved11 October2013.
  2. ^Wilkinson, Bill (October 1982)."CP/M for Atari?".Compute!.No. 29.Retrieved11 October2013.
  3. ^abcdePlatt, Charles (July 1997)."Plotting Away in Margaritaville: On a steamy Caribbean island, Vincent Cate and 80 cypherpunks gathered to make the global financial system safe from predators".Wired.Archived fromthe originalon 20 February 1999.Retrieved11 October2013.;see alsoCate & Gross 1991.
  4. ^Poole, Gary Andrew (12 June 1997)."Silicon Beach".Forbes.Retrieved11 October2013.
  5. ^abPower, Jack (29 April 1996)."Havens In The Net: Anguillan Entrepreneur Offers Offshore Alternative For Net-Based Business".Microtimes.No. 150. pp. 212–214.Retrieved11 October2013.
  6. ^McHugh, Josh (8 September 1997)."Going offshore on the Internet".Forbes.Retrieved11 October2013.
  7. ^abMaierbrugger, Arno (22 September 1999)."Schlupflöcher für Internet-Profis"[Slipholes for internet professionals].WirtschaftsBlatt.Retrieved11 October2013.
  8. ^Goltzsch, Patrick (6 July 1998)."Kryptographie und Datenoasen: Libertäre suchen das Weite"[Cryptography and data havens: libertarians look into the distance].Heise.de.Retrieved11 October2013.
  9. ^abWayner, Peter (6 September 1998)."Encryption Expert Says U.S. Laws Led to Renouncing of Citizenship".The New York Times.Retrieved11 October2013.
  10. ^Wayner, Peter (4 March 1997)."Cryptography and Paranoia in Anguilla".The New York Times.Retrieved11 October2013.
  11. ^"The ccTLD Names Council Elections: The Electoral Roll".ICANN.30 July 1999.Retrieved12 October2013.
  12. ^"Delegation Record for.AI".Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.2 May 2012.Retrieved12 October2013.
  13. ^Zurko, Marie Ellen (7 October 1998)."Crypto policy costs the US a citizen".Electronic CIPHER: Newsletter of the IEEE Computer Society's TC on Security and Privacy.No. 29.Retrieved11 October2013.
  14. ^Dawson, Keith (5 May 1996)."Become an international arms trafficker in one click".Tasty Bits from the Technology Front.Archived fromthe originalon 16 January 1997.Retrieved11 October2013.
  15. ^Doug Rogers, Internal Revenue Service (22 April 1999)."Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen To Expatriate, as Required by Section 6039G".Federal Register.64(77): 19858–19860.
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