Neal's essay has recently been published in paperback form, but it was originally released as a free download on the website promoting his book "Cryptonomicon". It contains no copyright notice or terms of usage, but other distributions of the essay give copyright to the Hearst Corporation. The essay has been reposted all over the web, but has never been edited, except for the addition hypertext navigational aids, or conversions of the file format.

Though I have not touched a word Stephenson wrote, I have broken up his essay by inserting color-coded commentary throughout. Since this presentation differs from any previous reproduction of the work, I felt I really should seek permission to have it online. Thus, the following email exchange:

The emails are shown as graphics to avoid spidering.