- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

RANTS: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto
by Eric Hughes 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

I've been meaning to write up a longer version of the welcome message text for some time now. I took the opportunity to do so before the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference. I made up 300 paper copies of this for distribution on the literature table. All but a couple dozen remained at the end of three days. So then, this is my _real_ manifesto. I took all the good lines out of the previous version and added more. I hope you enjoy it. It's available on the ftp site in the rants/ directory. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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(a)soda.berkeley.edu> 9 March 1993

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HUMOR: Manifesto anyone?
by Eric Hughes 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

I got the following message in my inbox today: >I saw news of your "A Cypherpunk's Manifesto" on AppleLink today. Is there a >chance you can e-mail me a copy (un-encrypted please)??? Hmm. The thought of sending out encrypted manifestos... I suppose we could proselyte the NSA. This one sounds like prime list member material, no? Eric

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The new welcome message, for your general information
by Eric Hughes 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

I've changed the welcome message for the list to update it with the ftp site, and other changes. I would like everyone to take a glance at this. I've written down some of the mailing list policies that have been _de facto_. Please reply to me if you have any questions. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have been added to the cypherpunks mailing list. The cypherpunks list is a forum for discussing personal defenses for privacy in the digital domain. It is a high volume mailing list. If you want to be added or removed from the list, send mail to cypherpunks-request(a)toad.com There is no automated list processing software; a human (me, Eric Hughes) will read your message and take the appropriate action. If you get two of these welcome messages, it likely means you've double subscribed and will have trouble getting off the list. Send mail to the above address and tell me if this happens. Do not expect instant turnaround. Remember, a human is looking at your requests, not a program. I try to do list maintenance every other day or so, but sometimes the delays are longer. Do not mail to the whole list asking to be removed. You'll just get the members of the list thinking you're a newbie and you'll get a note from me telling you to send mail the the -request address. If your mail bounces repeatedly, you will be removed from the list. Nothing personal, but I have to look at all the bounce messages. There is no digest version available. There is an announcements list which is moderated and has low volume. Announcements for physical cypherpunks meetings, new software and important developments will be posted there. Mail to cypherpunks-announce-request(a)toad.com if you want to be added or removed to the announce list. All announcements also go out to the full cypherpunks list, so there is no need to subscribe to both. There is an ftp site for cypherpunks. It is soda.berkeley.edu:pub/cypherpunks This site contains code, information, rants, and other miscellany. There is a glossary there that all new members should download and read. Also recommended for all users are Hal Finney's instructions on how to use the anonymous remailer system; the remailer sources are there for the perl-literate. Enjoy and deploy. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want privacy must create it for themselves and not expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence. Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors, and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other people from speaking about their experiences or their opinions. The most important means to the defense of privacy is encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy. But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it. Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography. Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks know how to attack a system and how to defend it. Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good cryptosystems. Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications of all kinds. Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and are patient with incremental progress. Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed. Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down. Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy.

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CYPHERPUNKS=EMAIL HARASSEMENT?
by Hal 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

So how many days, exactly, have people waited for response from cypherpunks-request before giving up and posting to the list? Just one or two, or are we talking weeks here? Hal

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PGP: Mac PGP 2.2 available at UMich ftp
by robichau＠lambda.msfc.nasa.gov 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

v2.2 of PGP for the Macintosh is available for anonymous FTP at the University of Michigan archives (mac.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.32.2) in /mac/util/encryption. Enjoy and deploy, -Paul -- Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG | May explode if disposed of improperly. Mission Software Development Div. | I'm not white- I'm Euro-American. New Technology, Inc. | RIPEM key on request.

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University Policies
by jb＠paris7.jussieu.fr 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

Hi, Following the thread about some Universities policy about using computing services I'd like to ask if you can send me YOUR Uni policy about the above matter. I'd like to make somekindda compilation of them and put it on our ftp server (smup7.jussieu.fr). Cheers, jb

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Re: news.admin.policy: A Report From the Front
by jordan＠imsi.com 17 Mar '93

17 Mar '93

>>> Who here has been in such a news war ... I was involved in a slightly different news war a few years ago. I was being harrassed by a particularly prolific news poster (at one point he represented nearly 9% of the total USENET weekly volume), and it turned out that I was running a site that had an NNTP feed to his site. I talked with the admin there, found out their fan-out plan, and made sure that anything I got from them got fanned out as soon as possible. Except I would modify the message in subtle ways, like change the attribution line from something like From: john(a)somesite.net (John Q. Public) to From: john(a)somesite.net (Wimpy Math Grad Student) Anyway, I was able to make my version of his postings "the" version by hitting all the other sites his site fanned out to first. It was fun for a while until he found out and tried to mail bomb me. Fortunately, I was around when it started, and put a reflector in to send his bombs back automatically piece by piece. His machine was a lowly VAX 750 running some backwater rev of 4.3 alpha-alpha, and sendmail promptly sent the load to 40 and crashed the machine. His PhD advisor was not amused. /jordan

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news.admin.policy: A Report From the Front
by an5877＠anon.penet.fi 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The good guys are beginning to prevail in the news.admin.policy battle over pseudonymous postings, aided in no small part by the opposition, one of whom began unilaterally cancelling articles by nyms. This tactical blunder produced a firestorm of protest and brought in fresh voices eager to speak out on the side of privacy and freedom of expression. We need to continue to weigh in on the side of pseudonymous postings. Perhaps the most constructive approach is to do so pseudonymously! DEADBEAT -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQBFAgUBK6X6HPFZTpBW/B35AQFOJgF9Fk/bNUE1cgl2vKJgFJCWg+1KDIqyeVtS ferduPOhXxNrdwyHWvx4vm+vIWKvdVEO =QHmk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind system, any replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi. *IMPORTANT server security update*, mail to update(a)anon.penet.fi for details.

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the recent mailing list flames
by hughes 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

A word from your list maintainer. Some people have no patience. I was at CFP for three days last week, soda has crashed twice (and is still down as of this writing), I've had house guests. I just this morning finished all the pending list requests. (All the deletions I did yesterday.) One of the two loud complainers, mbrennan(a)netcom.com, had actually doubled subscribed himself to the list. I had already removed him once, so I thought; I had moved him over to the -announce list. Since we don't believe in security by obscurity here, the following will generate a mail bomb for the next time _you_ want to be an asshole: yes "UNSUBSCRIBE ME\!\!\!" | head -30000 The program 'yes' (be repetitively affirmative) goes into an infinite loop printing its argument. When the pipe buffer fills up, the kernal blocks the 'yes' process and invokes 'head', which partially empties the buffer; 'yes' refills it. This goes on until 'head' has seen enough lines and terminates and closes the pipe. Closing the pipe then causes 'yes' to terminate. So even though 'yes' is nominally an infinite loop, when bound to a pipe and to a program which accepts a bounded number of lines, it stops being an infinite loop. I consider this clever. Enjoy, but do not deploy this one. Eric

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PGP 2.2
by ORNTS188＠ksuvxb.kent.edu 16 Mar '93

16 Mar '93

Hello, from reading some of the postings, I gather that there is another list that deals more with just PGP. If so could someone send the address to me. Thanks..... Dan :)

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