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Cypherpunks
Wikipedia defines "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" 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" is essential reading for all newcomers.
tl;dr:
- Essential reading: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto
- 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" 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) 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.
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
- 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.