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Remembering John Young, co-founder of web archive Cryptome
Obituary John Young, the co-founder of the legendary internet archive Cryptome, died at the age of 89 on March 28. The Register talked to friends and peers who gave tribute to a bright, pugnacious man who was devoted to the public's right to know.
Before WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, BayFiles, or Transparency Toolkit, there was Cryptome - an open internet archive that inspired them all, helped ignite the first digital crypto war, and even gave Julian Assange his start before falling out with him on principle.
Cryptome was set up by Young and his partner Deborah Natsios, who were architects living in New York at the time. They had similar backgrounds - Young had grown up with a "nomadic, hardscrabble Texas childhood," Natsios told The Register, while she spent her early life bouncing from country to country as her father, a CIA operative, rotated through assignments.
The 1968 student protests at Columbia University radicalized Young, she said. The protesters demonstrated most famously against the Vietnam War, but also against the university building a segregated gym on campus - the students called it "Gym Crow." Young was one of the protesters who occupied Avery Hall before the police moved in, arresting 700 people and injuring 100.
Before WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, BayFiles, or Transparency Toolkit, there was Cryptome - an open internet archive that inspired them all, helped ignite the first digital crypto war, and even gave Julian Assange his start before falling out with him on principle.
Cryptome was set up by Young and his partner Deborah Natsios, who were architects living in New York at the time. They had similar backgrounds - Young had grown up with a "nomadic, hardscrabble Texas childhood," Natsios told The Register, while she spent her early life bouncing from country to country as her father, a CIA operative, rotated through assignments.
The 1968 student protests at Columbia University radicalized Young, she said. The protesters demonstrated most famously against the Vietnam War, but also against the university building a segregated gym on campus - the students called it "Gym Crow." Young was one of the protesters who occupied Avery Hall before the police moved in, arresting 700 people and injuring 100.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/24/john_young_obituary/
