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