Writer's Block: The name game

[alexpgp]

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A long time ago, in a universe far away, back when telephone modems
reigned and the Internet was still mostly the private realm of
colleges, universities, the government, and defense contractors, we
moved to Colorado. The year was 1993.

Among other achievements, I was the first person in Archuleta County
(pop. ~5,000) to offer free email accounts on a dial-up BBS (The
SpringsBoard) that connected to the Internet a half-dozen times a day
to send and receive emails and make parts of Usenet available to my
neighbors. I was also a big fan of Pretty Good Privacy, a
controversial program that was useful for encryption and
authentication. In fact, for several years, I used PGP to "sign" all
of my online posts in an attempt to "raise consciousness" about
privacy and secure communications.

Then, during the 1997 American Translators Association conference in
San Francisco, I got involved in a discussion where there was another
participant named Alex, whereupon one of the discussion
leaders—who was a member of a mailing list where I had posted
countless PGP-signed messages—decided she needed names to
distinguish us, so I ended up being referred to as "Alex PGP."

The name stuck.

If I could change it, I might consider using my full name, but what
fun would that be?

Cheers...
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Comments

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Cool story. At our house, we drink PG Tips tea. We now often refer to you as Alex PG Tips!

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

My, how fortunate for me that Phil Zimmermann didn't call his program something that abbreviated to "PG Tips," else I'd really be in a pickle!

;^)

Cheers...