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-====== The cypherpunk movement ======
-{{ :cypherpunk.jpg?300|}}
-===== Manifesto =====
-  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
-March 1993