[Archive note: From: Computer underground Digest Sun Apr 03, 1994 Volume 6 : Issue 29 ISSN 1004-042X ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 01 Apr 94 16:13:22 EST From: Urnst Couch <70743.1711@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: File 1--Bill Gates' Gov't Appointment (Apr 1 Press Release) "GOVERNMENT TO INTELLECTUALIZE INFORMATION HIGHWAY THROUGH MENTUFACTURING" (AP)-In an unexpected White House press conference on April 1, Vice-President Albert Gore announced Microsoft's Bill Gates would be named director of a new agency designed to regulate and stimulate the development of the Information Superhighway. "If you have a personal computer, chances are that Mr. Gates and Microsoft Corp. are already a part of your life," said Gore during the conference. "In many cases, the personal computer is the on-ramp to the information highway, the conduit through which much of the national intellectual product of the future will flow. This intellectual product, or property, is manufactured, but not - in the conventional sense - through machinery. Rather, the commerce of the information highway is the harvest of the mind, our mental facilities. 'Mentufacturing' is the word the PR backroom guys -- have coined. Mr. Gates's excellence in the field make him the logical candidate for a new project to guide and accelerate the nation's transition to a mentufacturing industrial base." Gore went on to explain how Gates, along with a core consulting group consisting of telecommunications guru John Malone and cellular phone titan Craig McCaw, would make up the industry-government interface for the agency, tentatively named the Ministry of Mentufacturing, Organization, Networking and Electronic Exchange (MO*MONEE). The ministry is to be located at 2001 L Street NW, Washington, D.C., alongside offices of the Business Software Alliance. The initial mandate of the ministry, said Gore, would be to work up a plan for the issuing of Licenses of Mentufactury, which would become necessary - just as the motor vehicle operator's license is a must for drivers - for the operation of on-line services or the production of intellectual "soft goods." Gore said that he, along with Congress, would move briskly toward legislation requiring Licenses of Mentufactury for all computer industry and information highway entrepeneurs by late 1995. Roger Thrush, an administrative lieutenant speaking for the absent Gates, who was vacationing in Hawaii, explained how licensing would work. "It really is simpler than it sounds," said Thrush. "We envision several classes of mentufacturing, the primary of which constitutes existing on-line services and retail software developers in the Fortune 500. For the most part, this group has already been granted provisionary licenses with permanent approval contingent only upon minor structural and operational changes which we think will be no inconvenience to implement. For example, most of the captains of the information industry already have the capability to suborn their telecommunications feeds to something we call the Microserve and Mentufacturing Market Organizational Network - or MAMMON - backbone, a super-net which will make the registration of Licenses of Mentufactury electronic, instantaneous and economical. "For the small businessman - or millions of home hobbyists - there will be a different class of license. This should make it easier for the government to distinguish legitimate mentufacturing needs from socially heretical activity. For example, we would consider the bulletin board system application for a Licence of Mentufactury from a member of the North American Man-Boy Love Association frivolous. And this has an added benefit, because it allows for interactive, non-intrusive patrol of the information highway, thus hindering those who would use it for soliciting, piracy, or the dissemination of private, sensitive or proprietary information. Of course, the small businessman with a 5-6 line service will find the legislation transparent, which should make the cyber civil libertarians happy," Thrush laughed. Licenses of Mentufactury will be assigned tariffs based on a sliding scale beginning at $500, said Thrush. Fees would go to a government superfund, controlled by MO*MONEE. The superfund would be used for federal employee reimbursement and seed cash for promising breakthroughs in mentufacturing. Silicon Valley venture capitalist and ex-Gates paramour Ann Winblad said in interview, "Bill has wanted to adopt the mindset of a true visionary, to take even greater risks, for a long time. No one can doubt the scope of his ambition and his great admiration for Henry Ford is likewise well known. Like that entrepeneur, Bill wants to move Americans forward a quantum jump. Mentufacturing could be the answer for him, as well as the nation." "Mentufacturing mania will probably pique everyone's fancy in the next few months," said computer magazine writer John Dvorak. "It's a great concept, but making it concrete may take a little longer." "I believe everyone from education to industry will rush to go 'mental' on the Information Superhighway, now that the Vice President has put this welcome proposal onto the playing field," said Congressman Edward Markey (Dem.), also in attendance at the press meeting. Gore concluded the press conference by paraphrasing the Grolier dictionary's definition of "mentufacture." "To mentufacture is to engage in the _manufacture_ of the God which resides in every man: the fruit of the soul, our minds, ourselves. Thank you ladies and gentlemen." ------------------------------