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Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Why Seykhel?

Seykhel is a Hebrew word, representing not only intelligence, but also judgment and the ability to navigate wisely in a complex world. This space was created to explore ideas and reflections rooted in these values, with a special focus on critical thinking, autonomy, and a vision of a freer and more decentralized future.

Seykhel is also a tribute to Aaron Swartz, a programmer, writer, activist, and co-founder of Reddit. His family of Jewish descent often used this word to describe his intelligence and approach to life. Aaron Swartz is remembered not only for his extraordinary technical skill, but also for his deep sense of justice, his commitment to freedom of information, and his desire to improve society.

This commitment made him an inspirational figure for many, especially those who identified with the cypherpunk culture, which promotes privacy and decentralization.

Following his example, here I want to gather ideas, reflections, and resources for those who share the cypherpunk spirit and desire for a more just and aware society, one that understands the value of privacy, technological independence, and an open culture.

A Brief History of the Cypherpunk Movement

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:52:45 +0100

The cypherpunk movement emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in a historical context marked by growing concern over privacy and individual freedom in the digital age. “Cypher” refers to cryptography and encryption (from “cipher” or “cypher”), while “punks” refers to rebellious individuals—rebels who use encryption tools and cryptography as shields and weapons. The term also evokes the cyberpunk genre of science fiction, which focuses on dystopian futures dominated by technology.

Several factors contributed to this context:

Government surveillance: Revelations about mass surveillance activities by governments, such as those that emerged from the Church Committee hearings in the 1970s, fueled concerns about privacy.
Growing digitalization: The rapid expansion of digital networks and the increasing dependence on technology made individuals more vulnerable to surveillance and control.
Government control of digital infrastructure: Governments began exerting greater control over digital infrastructure and networks, raising concerns about censorship and limits to freedom of speech.

In this context, cypherpunks, a group of technologists and activists, came together to advocate for the widespread use of strong cryptography as a means to protect privacy and enable political dissent in the digital age. Their primary concerns and motivations included:

Protecting privacy: Cypherpunks believed that privacy was essential for fundamental civil rights, such as freedom of speech and association, and that strong cryptography was the most effective tool to protect privacy online.
Resisting mass surveillance: They viewed encryption as a way to counter mass surveillance programs and protect the right to anonymity.
Individual autonomy: Cypherpunks advocated for individual sovereignty and the right of people to control their data and communications without interference from governments or corporations.
Decentralizing power: They promoted decentralized systems, such as peer-to-peer networks, to reduce dependence on centralized authorities and promote individual empowerment.

Cypherpunks dedicated time and resources to researching and developing new cryptographic protocols, algorithms, and tools to make encryption accessible to everyone. One of the most important projects was PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), an encryption program for files and email communications developed by Phil Zimmermann. Cypherpunks also fiercely opposed government policies that would undermine citizens’ privacy, such as the proposal of the Clipper Chip, an encryption chip with a government backdoor that would allow access to encrypted communications.

The cypherpunk movement had a significant impact on cryptography and digital privacy, helping to mainstream these technologies and raising public awareness about the importance of privacy in the digital age. The movement’s legacy continues to influence the development of privacy technologies, such as cryptocurrencies and anonymity networks, and inspires digital rights activism.

Timeline of the “Cypherpunk Movement”

Late 1970s: The Church Committee hearings reveal the existence of mass surveillance programs for the first time, fueling privacy concerns.
- 1976:
  - Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman publish a paper, “New Directions in Cryptography,” where they describe the concept of public key cryptography, revolutionizing the way information can be protected.
  - Through the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) enacted by the United States Congress, the government made it illegal to export armaments to other countries without a license, including cryptography. Violation of the AECA carried penalties of up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to one million dollars. This move prohibited the distribution of cryptographic code, which was considered akin to smuggling munitions. In fact, until 1997, cryptographic code was legally considered a bomb by the U.S. government.
- 1977: Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman developed the first widely used public key encryption algorithm, known as RSA, based on the difficulty of factoring large integers.
Late 1980s - early 1990s:
- Governments began intensifying intelligence programs and asserting greater control over digital infrastructure and networks.
- The early roots of the cypherpunk movement originated in the research of cryptographer David Chaum on topics such as anonymous digital cash and pseudonymous reputation systems, as described in the paper “Security without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete“.
- The first online meetings and mailing lists took place, where prominent figures like Timothy C. May exchanged ideas and collaborated remotely before the spread of the internet.
- 1988: Timothy C. May, an American engineer and writer, wrote “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto.”
- 1989 David Chaum developed DigiCash, the first electronic payment system based on asymmetric cryptography and blind-signature.
Early 1990s:
- 1991:
  - Philip Zimmermann developed and released PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), software that allowed people to encrypt and decrypt emails and files, making strong encryption accessible to the public.
  - The release of PGP led the U.S. government to open an FBI investigation into its export, galvanizing privacy advocates and marking the beginning of the so-called “Crypto Wars”.
  - Two researchers, Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, published the paper “How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document”, demonstrating how to assert with absolute certainty the existence of a specific document at a given point in history.
- 1992:
  - Jude Milhon, known as St. Jude, a programmer and activist, coined the term cypherpunk.
  - September: Eric Hughes, Timothy C. May, and John Gilmore formed a small group of computing enthusiasts, which later became known as the Cypherpunk Movement, as suggested by J. Milhon. They created the “Cypherpunks Mailing List”, an online forum for discussing cryptography, privacy, and related issues. John Gilmore offered the offices of his company, Cygnus Solutions, for monthly meetings, at the first of which Tim May read “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto” and hosted the “Cypherpunks Mailing List” on his website.
  - November 22, 1992: “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto” was published, written in 1988 by Tim May.
- 1993:
  - The Clipper Chip was proposed, intended to be adopted by telephone companies and sought to implement encryption with backdoors and key escrow managed by the NSA, generating strong opposition from Cypherpunks and civil liberties groups.
  - March 9, 1993 Publication of "A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto". Eric Hughes, an American mathematician, cryptographer, and writer, wrote the manifesto of the movement, defining Cypherpunks as “a new kind of social activist, promoting cryptography vigorously in the belief that it is the most effective means of protecting privacy in the information age.”
  - In the May/June 1993 issue, Wired magazine published a cover story on Cypherpunks.
- 1994: Timothy C. May published The Cyphernomicon, a vast collection of ideas, discussions, and information regarding cryptography, privacy, anonymity, and the political and social implications of cryptographic technologies in the digital age.
- 1997:
  - End of investigations on Phil Zimmermann:
    - After years of investigations, the case against Zimmermann was closed without formal charges, marking a symbolic victory for the cypherpunk movement.
  - Adam Back, a British computer scientist and cryptographer, developed Hashcash, a proof-of-work system designed to counter email spam and denial-of-service attacks. This system required the sender to perform a computational task before sending a message, making mass unwanted email sending costly.
- 1998: Wei Dai, a computer engineer, described the concept of “cryptocurrency” for the first time in the cypherpunk mailing list, suggesting the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions rather than a central authority.
2008: Bitcoin emerged, utilizing cryptography to power a decentralized, trustless payment network. Hashcash, which adopts the concept of proof-of-work as a central mechanism for transaction validation and network security, mentioned above, is cited in the Bitcoin white paper. Many of the early users and collaborators of Bitcoin came directly from the Cypherpunk ranks.
2013: Edward Snowden, whistleblower, former computer technician, and consultant for the NSA through the company Booz Allen Hamilton, after previously working for the CIA, revealed, with the help of journalists from the Guardian and the Washington Post, a wide range of secret information on global mass surveillance conducted by the U.S. government, particularly by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Today ->: The Cypherpunk movement continues to influence debates on technology and politics, pushing for innovations that enhance privacy and keeping excesses that could undermine civil liberties in check. It continues to advocate for privacy, digital civil liberties, and decentralized alternatives through ongoing technical progress.

A Cypherpunk's Manifesto

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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.

9 March 1993

Eric Hughes <hughes@soda.berkeley.edu>

Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.

That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It’s outrageous and unacceptable.

“I agree,” many say, “but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it’s perfectly legal — there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” But there is something we can, something that’s already being done: we can fight back.

Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.

Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.

But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.

Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who can make copies.

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past.

Will you join us?

Aaron Swartz July 2008, Eremo, Italy