Cypherpunk ideology: objectives, profiles, and influences (1992–1998)

[jim bell]

Cypherpunk ideology: objectives, profiles, and influences (1992–1998)
Craig JarvisReceived 26 Dec 2020, Accepted 21 May 2021, Published online: 26 Jun 2021   
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   - https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.1935547

Cypherpunk ideology: objectives, profiles, and influences (1992–1998)


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Cypherpunk ideology: objectives, profiles, and influences (1992–1998)

Craig Jarvis

(2021). Cypherpunk ideology: objectives, profiles, and influences (1992–1998). Internet Histories. Ahead of Print.
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Abstract

The cypherpunks were 1990s digital activists who challenged White House policies aiming to prevent the emergence of unregulated digital cryptography, an online privacy technology capable of frustrating government surveillance. Whilst the cypherpunk’s ideology, which is predominantly the output of Timothy C. May, is well understood, less is known about the composition of the cypherpunk’s community. This article builds on past studies by Rid and Beltramini by using the cypherpunk’s mail list archive to profile the most active and influential cypherpunks. This study confirms the May-derived ideology is broadly, though not entirely, representative of the cypherpunk community. This article assesses the cypherpunks were a highly educated, mostly libertarian community permeated by aspects of anarchism which arose from a societal disaffiliation inherited from the counterculture. This article further argues that the cypherpunks were also influenced by the hacker ethic and dystopian science fiction.

Keywords: 
Cypherpunkscryptographycyberspacepolicydigital privacydigital surveillancecrypto warsPrevious articleView latest articlesNext article
Introduction

The cypherpunks were a group of privacy activists who in the 1990s helped establish the use of unregulated digital cryptography within the United States. Digital privacy, better phrased as privacy in the digital age given the inexorable digital-physical convergence, is achieved principally via digital security. When considering the base elements of digital security, Professor Keith Martin comments that, “cryptography is pretty much the only game in town” (Martin, 2020, p. 2). Cryptography allows not only for a host of vital applications within our everyday lives, such as secure financial transactions, but also for capabilities the cypherpunks hoped would undermine the State (May, 1988). Such encryption-dependent technologies include: block-chains, which can place financial transactions beyond the government’s ability to monitor and tax; whistleblowing platforms, capable of facilitating leaks whilst protecting the whistleblower; and anonymity networks, which can obfuscate a citizen’s physical location.

The cypherpunks helped shape our Internet. Beltramini comments they were, “perhaps the single most effective grassroots organization in history dedicated to protecting freedom in cyberspace” (Beltramini, 2020, p. 1). However, Dahlberg argues that cyber-libertarian visions of the future, such as those held by the cypherpunks, had mostly dissipated by 2000, he comments that by then the Internet was, “seen as part and parcel of “everyday life” – simply an extension of existing social systems, rather than being a revolutionary medium transcending offline political and economic constraints” (2010, p. 333). However, Dahlberg’s assessment fails to account for the significant 1990s cryptographic advances made by the citizenry, which included weakening export controls, defeating the Clinton administration’s attempts to further regulate cryptography, and establishing the foundation for current technologies such as crypto-currencies. Today, law enforcement does not consider unregulated encryption as a tolerable status quo as its use hinders their access to suspect’s data.1 In 2020 alone, two bills were introduced in Congress which could outlaw encryption not containing a government access method (commonly referred to as a “back door”) (United States Congress, 2020; United States Senate, 2020). When the Clinton administration sought to include a back door within encryption technologies in the 1990s, the cypherpunks led the successful battle to defeat government policy, thus helping to establish unregulated cryptography. The cypherpunk ideology now influences a new generation of digital privacy activists.2 These new activists are responsible for challenging today’s government policies to mandate encryption back doors.

It is important we understand the community which last successfully challenged the State’s attempt to regulate cryptography so that ongoing debates are informed by an accurate characterization of those who established today’s status quo. This article builds on the cypherpunk studies of Rid (2016) and Beltramini (2020


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Cypherpunk ideology: objectives, profiles, and influences (1992–1998)

Craig Jarvis

(2021). Cypherpunk ideology: objectives, profiles, and influences (1992–1998). Internet Histories. Ahead of Print.
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) by using the cypherpunk mail list archive to profile the broader cypherpunk community. This profiling indicates that the cypherpunks were a highly educated, primarily libertarian community permeated by aspects of anarchism which arose from a societal disaffiliation inherited from the counterculture. The profiling further indicates that the cypherpunks objectives were directed to minimize, or even remove the State from public life, and that they were influenced by the hacker ethic and dystopian science fiction.



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