Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one's fellows in society. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common good. Cryptography will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the anonymous transactions systems that it makes possible.įor privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. Even laws against cryptography reach only so far as a nation's border and the arm of its violence. The act of encryption, in fact, removes information from the public realm.
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We know that software can't be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down.Ĭypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for encryption is fundamentally a private act. We don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write.
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Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can't get privacy unless we all do, we're going to write it. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.Ĭypherpunks write code. We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems.
The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. Information is Rumor's younger, stronger cousin Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence. Furthermore, to reveal one's identity with assurance when the default is anonymity requires the cryptographic signature. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired this is the essence of privacy.
An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. I cannot here selectively reveal myself I must _always_ reveal myself. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy.
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When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. In most cases personal identity is not salient. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. The power of electronic communications has enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to. If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. Each party can speak about their own memory of this how could anyone prevent it? One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society we seek not to restrict any speech at all. If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. A Cypherpunk's Manifesto Eric Hughes March 9, 1993
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