Add some 'Getting Started' content

sections/getting-started/what-is-a-cypherpunk.md

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+---
+layout: static-informational
+permalink: /getting-started/what-is-a-cypherpunk
+title: What is a Cypherpunk?
+---
+
+## Cypherpunks
+
+Wikipedia defines "[Cypherpunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk)" as follows (2018-05-26):
+
+> A **cypherpunk** is any activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal groups aimed to achieve privacy and security through proactive use of cryptography. Cypherpunks have been engaged in an active movement since the late 1980s.
+
+The following paragraphs are also worth including:
+
+> Until about the 1970s, cryptography was mainly practiced in secret by military or spy agencies. However, that changed when two publications brought it out of the closet into public awareness: the US government publication of the Data Encryption Standard (DES), a block cipher which became very widely used; and the first publicly available work on public-key cryptography, by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman.
+
+> The technical roots of Cypherpunk ideas have been traced back to work by cryptographer David Chaum on topics such as anonymous digital cash and pseudonymous reputation systems, described in his paper "Security without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete" (1985).
+
+> In late 1992, Eric Hughes, Timothy C. May and John Gilmore founded a small group that met monthly at Gilmore's company Cygnus Solutions in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was humorously termed cypherpunks by Jude Milhon at one of the first meetings - derived from cipher and cyberpunk. In November 2006, the word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
+
+It should be noted that while the term "cypherpunk" *is* a humourous reference to the contemporary "cyberpunk" scene, the two philosophies/scenes are not as closely related as the name suggests.
+
+In terms of how "cypherpunks" would define themselves, we can actually look to founding cypherpunk Eric Hughes's words for a much more succinct definition:
+
+> Cypherpunks write code.
+
+This comes from "[A Cypherpunk's Manifesto](https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html)" which was posted by Hughes to the Cypherpunks Mailing List on 9th March 1993. In this document he argues for a cypherpunk ethos which involves action over talk. He believed that instead of debating the fineries of potential systems, cypherpunks should get to work writing the cryptographic software that will enable them to bring more privacy and liberty into the word.
+
+Modern-day cypherpunks still hold that ethos close to their heart. Just as "The Crypto-Anarchist Manifesto" was required required reading for that section, "[A Cypherpunk's Manifesto](https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html)" is essential reading for all newcomers.
+
+## tl;dr:
+
++ Essential reading: [A Cypherpunk's Manifesto](https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html)
++ Cypherpunks believe in favouring action over talk (cypherpunks write code) and that writing functional code is the best route towards bringing more liberty and privacy into the world via cryptography. 
+
+## The Cypherpunks Mailing List
+
+From the Wikipedia "[Cypherpunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk)" artice:
+
+> The Cypherpunks mailing list was started in 1992, and by 1994 had 700 subscribers. At its peak, it was a very active forum with technical discussion ranging over mathematics, cryptography, computer science, political and philosophical discussion, personal arguments and attacks, etc., with some spam thrown in. An email from John Gilmore reports an average of 30 messages a day from December 1, 1996 to March 1, 1999, and suggests that the number was probably higher earlier. The number of subscribers is estimated to have reached 2000 in the year 1997.
+
+While an incarnation of the mailing list is still in operation (archives viewable [here](https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/)) it is generally acknowledged that its heyday way in the 90s through to around 2000. The (incomplete) archive of posts from this era can be found at [cypherpunks.venona.com](https://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/).
+
+Reading the archives, you will notice that while it was subject to the usual trolling and spam, like most online communities both then and now, it had high signal to noise ratio. High quality technical discussion relating to maths and cryptography is found on the list.
+
+This community inspired a generation of people to start viewing this relatively arcane branch of mathematics (assymetric cryptography - itself only about 20 years old at the time) as a powerful tool for social change. Armed with these ideological convictions and technical toolsets, many cypherpunks made great contributions. Notable list participants include Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, and Hal Finney (the receiver of the first Bitcoin transaction). Assuming Satoshi Nakamoto (the creator of Bitcoin) was not Finney himself, then this mysterious figure was also most likely a list subscriber (and maybe participant).
+
+The modern crypto-currency space can largely be considered as an offshoot of the community first formed on the Cypherpunks Mailing List.
+
+## tl;dr:
+
++ Optional reading: [Cypherpunk Mailing List Archives](https://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/)
++ The Cypherpunks Mailing List was the place where a community and ideology was founded that favoured direct action (in the form of software code) towards the ends of social change (namely an increase in privacy and individial liberty).
++ This community and ideology later inspired the creation of Wikileaks, Bitcoin and the current Cryptocurrency space.

sections/getting-started/what-is-crypto-anarchy.md

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+---
+layout: static-informational
+permalink: /getting-started/what-is-crypto-anarchy
+title: What is Crypto Anarchy?
+---
+
+Wikipedia defines "[Crypto-Anarchism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-anarchism)" as follows (2018-05-26):
+
+> **Crypto-anarchism** (or **crypto-anarchy**) is a cyber-spatial realization of anarchism. Crypto-anarchists employ cryptographic software to evade persecution and harassment while sending and receiving information over computer networks, in an effort to protect their privacy, their political freedom, and their economic freedom.
+
+The term was coined by Timothy C. May in [The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto](https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/crypto-anarchy.html) which was distributed via the Cypherpunks Mailing List on 22nd November 1992. This document is essential first reading for the total newcomer and is relatively short.
+
+Crypto-anarchy is a form of market-anarchism where cryptography, anonymity technologies, digital pseudonyms and cryptographic digital cash are used to subvert the power of the state. The stated goal of the crypto-anarchist movement is to enable people to engage in unlimited free speech and economic transactions which are beyond the reach of the state's ability to tax and regulate.
+
+Some see this as a way to restore balance between the rights of the individual and the power of the state. Others see crypto-anarchy as a tool to forever render the state impossible. It would achieve this by denying the state the ability to raise funding or identify individual actors for law enforcement purposes.
+
+The more radical still, such as Jim Bell, propose using these same technologies to set up anonymously funded and trust-minimised Assassination Markets, where political assassinations can be crowd funded. He explained his proposal in detail in [Assassination Politics](https://web.archive.org/web/20180331030749/https://cryptome.org/ap.htm). He theorises that such markets would make the job of being a politician or high-level bureaucrat so dangerous that, in the end, no-one would want to do it. The state would then, in his view, wither on the vine, chronically understaffed and starved of revenue by the rapidly growing crypto-anarchist economy.
+
+## tl;dr:
+
++ Essential reading: [The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto](https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/crypto-anarchy.html)
++ Crypto-anarchists seek to use strong encryption and anonymity tools to create spaces outside of the reach of the state for free space and commerce.