Cypherpunk
A cypherpunk is someone who promotes strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technology as a way to bring about social and political change.
The basics
Eric Hughes, Timothy C. May and John Gilmore founded the cypherpunk group in late 1992. It met monthly at Gilmore's company, Cygnus Solutions, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jude Milhon coined the name at an early meeting, blending "cipher" and "cyberpunk".
The Cypherpunks mailing list began in 1992. It had about 700 subscribers by 1994, and an estimated 2,000 by 1997. Wikipedia describes the movement as libertarian in outlook, valuing decentralisation and individual autonomy.
Two texts set out the ideas:
- "A Cypherpunk's Manifesto" by Eric Hughes, dated 9 March 1993. It opens: "Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age." It argues that "privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems." It warns that "We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy". Its answer is to build the tools: "Cypherpunks write code."
- "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" by Timothy C. May, dated 22 November 1992. It begins: "A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy." May also wrote The Cyphernomicon (1994), a cypherpunk FAQ.
How it applies to Logos
The Logos manifesto, by Jarrad Hope, says the project "traces its origins to the founding ideals of the cypherpunk movement." It states: "Privacy is not secrecy, it is a fundamental right."
The Logos homepage describes private-by-default technology "to reclaim civil society". The Logos blog published a podcast episode, "Peter Ludlow: Crypto Anarchy and Cyberstates", on 31 January 2024.
Examples
Projects and people Wikipedia links to the movement:
- PGP, created by Philip Zimmermann. Hal Finney was the main author of PGP 2.0.
- Bitcoin, invented under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
- Tor, which enables anonymous web browsing.
- Hashcash, invented by Adam Back.
- b-money, a cryptocurrency proposal by Wei Dai.
- WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, who joined the mailing list around 1993 to 1994.
Add an example: edit this section.
See also
Takes on this idea
None yet. See Takes.
Sources
- Eric Hughes, A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, activism.net, 9 March 1993
- Timothy C. May, The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, activism.net, 22 November 1992
- Cypherpunk, Wikipedia
- Jarrad Hope, Logos: A Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace, logos.co
- Logos homepage, logos.co
- The Logos Blog, blog.logos.co