Jude Milhon

Judith Milhon
Born	March 12, 1939 Washington D.C.
Died	July 19, 2003 (aged 64)
Other names	Best known as St. Jude
Occupation	hacker and author
Employer	Horn and Hardart; senior editor at Mondo 2000, frequent contributor to Boing Boing
Known for	Coined the term cypherpunk. Contributed to the Berkeley Operating System and Community Memory
Notable work	The Cyberpunk Handbook (1995), How to Mutate and Take Over the World (1996)
Home town	San Francisco Bay Area
Movement	Founding member of the cypherpunks

Judith [Jude] Milhon (March 12, 1939 – July 19, 2003), in Washington D.C,^[1] best known by her pseudonym St. Jude, was a hacker and author in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Milhon coined the term cypherpunk and was a founding member of the cypherpunks.^[2] On July 19, 2003, Milhon died of cancer.^[3]

Professional Projects

Milhon taught herself programming in 1967 and landed her first job at the Horn and Hardart company of New York before she moved away to California to join the counter culture movement.^[4] Among the projects she contributed to were the Berkeley Operating System and Community Memory.^[5] She was a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the author of several books. She was a senior editor at the magazine Mondo 2000 and frequent contributor to Boing Boing.

Bibliography

• The Joy of Hacker Sex (proposed)
• How to Mutate & Take Over the World: an Exploded Post-Novel. (1997) (with R. U. Sirius) Random House ISBN 0-517-19832-0
• Cyberpunk Handbook: The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook. (1995) (with R. U. Sirius and Bart Nagel) Random House. ISBN 0-679-76230-2
• Hacking the Wetware: The NerdGirl’s Pillow Book (1994) (internet release of ebook) ^[6]

Activism and Vision

St. Jude had her hand in many different causes. She was active in the 1960's Civil Rights Movement helping to organize the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.^[7] Dedicated to protest, Milhon was also jailed for civil disobedience in Jackson, Mississippi.^[8]

Activism within the cyber community was important to Milhon as well. She frequently urged women toward the internet and hacking while encouraging them to have "tough skin" in the face of harassment.^[9] The creation of cypherpunks was also part of her politic: the goals of privacy through encryption.^[10]

Quotes

• "Hacking is the clever circumvention of imposed limits, whether imposed by your government, your IP server, your own personality, or the laws of physics." — St. Jude ^[11]
• "Give us bandwidth or kill us!" — St. Jude^[12]
• "Girls need modems!" — St. Jude ^[13]
• "I'm a future-hacker; I'm trying to get root access to the future. I want to raid its system of thought." — St. Jude^[14]
• "I hate this waaaah-I'm-a-poor-sensitive-weak-woman-protect-me shit. This kind of stuff generates more contempt for women. So fuck niceness!" — St. Jude ^[15]

Family Life

Judith Milhon was born in Washington D.C, raised in Indiana, to a military family of the Marine Corps.^[16][17] She married Robery Behling and later had a partner of 40 years, Efrem Lipkin, who had also worked on Community Memory.^[18] She had at least one child, Tresca, and one grandchild, Emilio who were alive at her 2003 death from cancer.^[19]

References

1. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
2. Cross, Rosie (February 1, 1995). "Modem Grrrl". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
3. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
4. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
5. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
6. "The Joy of HACKER SEX". Archived from the original on September 21, 2005.
7. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
8. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
9. Cross, Rosie (February 1, 1995). "Modem Grrrl". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
10. Rubenstein, Steve (July 30, 2003). "Judith Milhon computer writer and 'hacker'". San Francisco Chronicle (California). Retrieved April 5, 2016.
11. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
12. Cross, Rosie (February 1, 1995). "Modem Grrrl". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
13. Cross, Rosie (February 1, 1995). "Modem Grrrl". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
14. Cross, Rosie (February 1, 1995). "Modem Grrrl". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
15. Cross, Rosie (February 1, 1995). "Modem Grrrl". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
16. Cross, Rosie (February 1, 1995). "Modem Grrrl". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
17. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
18. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.
19. Dodson, Sean (August 8, 2003). "Obituary: Judith Milhon: Making the internet a feminist issue". The Guardian. p. 27.

External links

• Milhon, Jude. "St. Jude's Shameless Self-Promotion Shack!" at the Wayback Machine (archived August 14, 2007) (AOL homepage). Retrieved August 24, 2013. Archived August 14, 2007.
• The WELL's Virtual Wake
• Delio, Michelle. "Hackers Lose a Patron Saint", Wired News. July 22, 2003. Retrieved March 4, 2006.
• Welton, Corey. "St. Jude Gets Verbose", Verbosity Magazine. August 1996. Retrieved March 4, 2006.