Jude Milhon

Judith [Jude] Milhon (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.

Judith Milhon
Born
Washington D.C.
Died(2003-07-19)July 19, 2003 (aged 64)
Other namesBest known as St. Jude
Occupationhacker and author
EmployerHorn and Hardart; senior editor at Mondo 2000, frequent contributor to Boing Boing
Known forCoining the term cypherpunk
Co-creator of Community Memory
Early contributor to the Berkeley Software Distribution
Notable work
The Cyberpunk Handbook (1995), How to Mutate and Take Over the World (1996)
Home townSan Francisco Bay Area
MovementFounding member of the cypherpunks
Jude's mugshot from her civil rights days.

Milhon coined the term cypherpunk and was a founding member of the cypherpunks.[2] On July 19, 2003, Milhon died of cancer.[1]

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 counterculture movement.[1] Among the projects she contributed to were the Berkeley Software Distribution operating system and Community Memory.[1][3] 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) [4]

Activism and Vision

St. Jude had her hand in many different causes. She was active in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement helping to organize the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.[1] Dedicated to protest, Milhon was also jailed for civil disobedience in Jackson, Mississippi.[1]

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.[2] The creation of cypherpunks was also part of her politic: the goals of privacy through encryption.[5]

Family Life

Judith Milhon was born in Washington D.C., raised in Indiana, to a military family of the Marine Corps.[2][1] She married Robert Behling and later had a partner of 40 years, Efrem Lipkin, who had also worked on Community Memory.[1] She had at least one child, Tresca Behling, and one grandchild, Emilio Zuniga who were alive at her 2003 death from cancer.[1]

gollark: I *think* the first mention of apioforms was in direct messages between me and heavpoot about a week before andrew said it.
gollark: UTF-64 *when*?
gollark: I secure really important stuff by running it through SHA256.
gollark: It's secured™ using advanced 2048-bit 5rot26 encryption.
gollark: Analog quantum computers precisely simulating standard commodity server hardware in real time, that is.

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. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  3. Doub, Bo (23 February 2016). "Community Memory: Precedents in Social Media and Movements". Computer History Museum. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  4. "The Joy of HACKER SEX". Archived from the original on September 21, 2005.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
  5. Rubenstein, Steve (July 30, 2003). "Judith Milhon computer writer and 'hacker'". San Francisco Chronicle. California. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
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