John L. Young, who took advantage of his experience as a computer -skilled architect to help build CryptomThe huge library of the sensitive documents preceded by Wikileaks was in some respects outperformed it in their non-barred access to the revelation of government secrets, died on March 28 in the rehabilitation facility in Manhattan. He was 89.
His death, which was not widely reported at the time, came from complications of lymphoma with large cells, his wife Deborah Natsios said.
Cryptome, which Mr. Young and Mrs. Natsios, a daughter of the CIA officer, found in 1996, offers smart and unclear public domain documents, presented in the opposite chronological order and bare bones, a courier display, as if it were written on a typewriter.
70,000 documents on the web ranges from a seemingly harmless catalog from the National Intelligence University – to a clearly strictly secrets: over the years Mr. Young revealed the identity of hundreds of intelligence workers in the United States, Britain and Japan.
“I’m a wild rival of government secrets of all kinds,” Said Associated Press in 2013. “The scale is so far the contrary that I am willing to stick my neck and say that there should be no.”
Although he was occasionally cut off from the FBI and his Internet service providers for fear of legal entanglements, he has never been charged with a crime and cryptome was always early online soon.
Cryptome was preceded by WikiLeaks and other anti-curtain sites by about ten years. Although Mr. Young was an early supporter of Wikileaks and even registered his domain, he became a critic of his leader Julian Assange, who said he was too focused on his own celebrity and too willing to edit some information.
Mr. Young, on the other hand, was a purist: If the document was not a scam, Kryptome continued. He said that while Mr. Assange considered journalists, he considered himself an archivist and maintained huge information, but is not responsible for its content.
The former left-wing sixties radical maintained Mr. Young healthy-some could say excessive-the rule towards the government. He often told reporters that he thought they were spies and blamed former friends of being double agents.
Armed titles in philosophy and architecture spent the 1970s leading the design of the non -profit organization in New York, Urban Deadline, which built things like “schools” on the streets with low income.
In the age of 80, he specialized to make sure that the systems and structures of the building are on the code – the work that later compared to the missptome mission.
“We required architects for police issues of public health, security and good living conditions by state laws,” In 2014 he said on the website website. “This is in the name of public well -being. From the Cryptome perspective, we are obliged to the police as an architects if you want. We are obliged to disagree how it is required for public good.”
Mr. Young soon became a computer design adoptive, which in turn caused his interest in discussing digital privacy that began to circle at the end of the 80s because the development in telecommunications raised questions about the government monopoly on cryptographic instruments.
Mr. Young joined the list of addressees CypherpunksA free group of hackers and programmers who intend to open the Internet and control government efforts to track online traffic.
At that time, most government documents were still in a printed copy. Mr. Young had a scanner who offered to anyone who wanted to escape the secret papers online – a service that he and Mrs. Natsios eventually turned into a cryptome.
“Kryptome has been a critical piece of transparency,” said Cindy Cohn, Executive Director Electronic boundaryA non -profit organization that prevents civil freedom in the digital world.
Mr. Young was not without his critics; Even his admirers said that his unwillingness to consider the interests of national security when publishing online documents may be disproportionate.
But he faced it, if something, helped the government.
“If you know weakness, reveal it, don’t hide it,” said Associated Press.
John Lee Young was born on December 22, 1935 in Millersview, a small town in Central Texas. His mother, Beatrice (Rhodes) Young, supervised the home and his father, plowing Young, was a traveling construction worker. They divorced when John was young and spent his childhood with different relatives throughout the state.
After leaving school at the age of 14, he spent three years at various jobs – by choosing cotton, Hawking religious icons, selling fuller brushes from door to door – before entering the US Army in 1953.
He was assigned to the engineers’ choir in Germany. He spent his free time traveling in Europe and accepted the huge architectural heritage of the continent.
In 1956, despite his lack of secondary school title, Mr. Young entered the University of Texas Tech. He moved to Rice University in Houston and graduated in 1963 with the title of philosophy and architecture. He then worked on historical protection projects throughout the city.
In 1967 he arrived at Columbia University to complete the master’s degree in the new historical monument program of the Architectural School.
A year later he joined dozens of students to the occupation of Avery Hall, the main building of the university architecture, during the protests against Columbia to involve in the Vietnam War and his Plans for new gyms in Harlem.
Although he became the leader of the protesters, he was not excluded and graduated in 1969.
The first wife of Mr. Young, Martha (Calhoun) Young, died in 1968 and had him raised by her four children. His second marriage, with Marjorie Hoog, ended in divorce. In 1990, Mrs. Nansios met; They got married in 1998.
Along with her, three children from his first marriage survived, Marcolm, Lilac and Anina Young, as well as two grandchildren. His daughter Dara, also from his first marriage, died earlier. He lived in Manhattan.
Mr. Young never stopped practicing architecture, even after he founded Cryptome. He and Mrs. Natsios kept the web partially partially to save time and money; It insisted that it took only a few hours of work a week and about $ 2,000 a year.
He insisted that it was a public service, his way to return.
“The thing that created the Internet and 90 and 90. And in the early 1920s, there were people like John Young,” said Mrs. Cohn, “who simply appeared and began to do things that were interesting and useful and important and were stubborn enough to achieve them.”
