A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto is an important document that outlines the beliefs of the Cypherpunk movement. While this movement was born in the 1990s, the principles behind the Cypherpunk Manifesto are still just as relevant today. The Cypherpunks were a group of cryptologists, engineers and technologists who advocated the use of strong cryptography to protect privacy in the digital world.
Among the most popular ideas of the cypherpunks was that cryptography could be used to fight back against government surveillance, thereby ensuring privacy and freedom. This was a common thread that linked together a wide variety of people from different backgrounds including anarcho-capitalists, socialists, leftists, and political scientists.
The cypherpunk community developed in the early 1990s when a small group of people gathered around a shared interest in cryptography. They hoped to build a community where people could share knowledge and help one another solve problems.
Their first meeting was held in 1992 and was arranged by a couple of crypto-enthusiasts, Eric Hughes and Timothy May. They were both based in the San Francisco Bay Area and had joined forces with John Gilmore to create a monthly cryptography-related meeting.
They had a common goal of making sure cryptography was available to the public. They argued that making encryption accessible to the general population was essential for maintaining civil liberty in an age when governments and corporations could easily access information through cryptography.
However, the cypherpunks argued that this should not be the only goal of their work. Rather, their aim was to minimise or remove the State from public life by creating technological checks against the State. They drew their inspiration from the hacker ethic and dystopian science fiction.
While the cypherpunks were a diverse community, the primary ideology that they developed was derived from the writings of the cypherpunk co-founder Timothy C. May (May, 1994).
This was a philosophy that started with an awareness of the importance of privacy in the digital world and the belief that strong cryptography could be the tool to preserve it. It was not the first philosophical perspective of crypto-anarchy but it certainly was an influential one.
The cypherpunks were also strongly against government policies that aimed to regulate cryptography. This included export laws, promotion of limited key length ciphers and escrowed encryption technologies.
Although the cypherpunks had many different opinions on the politics of cryptography, most agreed that the government should not be allowed to control its use and that citizens should have the right to possess strong encryption technology.
Moreover, they argued that strong cryptography should be available to all citizens of the United States. This would allow the cypherpunks to develop technologies that would eventually result in the creation of a new digital currency system, which they believed would erode the power of the State and its agencies (May, 1995).
The cypherpunks fought for cryptography as an independent political tool. It is not a coincidence that some of the most prominent crypto-anarchists, such as Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, come from this movement.
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