Time for a return of the Cypherpunks, Crypto-Anarchists & Techno-Libertarians?

http://www.jroller.com/mindcrime/entry/time_for_the_return_of

by mindcrime • 14 years ago

162 94 14 years ago

m0nastic6• 14 years ago

By contrast, I've noticed the exact opposite phenomenon that the OP describes (mainly, that over the past year or so, neo-cypherpunks have started coming out of the woodwork to prosthelitize things like bitcoin, and terrible in-browser Javascript crypto).

I suppose we all see what we want to see.

I do wish that there existed a forum for some of the discussions that used to actually happen on the cypherpunks list (even though it would frequently derail into arguments about assasination markets, and paranoid conspiracy theories).

unimpressive2• 14 years ago

>terrible in-browser Javascript crypto

I'm not a cryptographer by any means, but my first thought when reading that is can we make non-terrible in-browser javascript crypto?

Aethaeryn• 14 years ago

One of the top Google results for "javascript cryptography" thoroughly attacks the concept, but I'm not an expert in the area so I can't refute or confirm its claims:

http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/

pgeorgi• 14 years ago

The main issue is the trust base. Allow the entire code base of a site to be pinned down to a cert (and that has to be done outside the website context, ie. in-browser), and you're halfway there.

Say, a signed webapp manifest, listing all files that are supposed to be used in that context and their hashes. On first execution, the associated key is stored, maybe compared with third party knowledge about the site (not tampered with) and key (known not-trustworthy).

After that, you know when someone else than the maintainer tampered with the code.

With that you're down to trusting the maintainer. Which makes it as good as any other code distribution scheme.

oconnore• 14 years ago

It's not a problem with javascript so much as a problem with the issue of knowing what code is actually running in your browser.

m0nastic6• 14 years ago

The short answer is "no, we can't" which every time someone proposes a new scheme seems to infuriate people (as though our inability to actually do it is a value judgement on whether or not it's a good idea).

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

mainly, that over the past year or so, neo-cypherpunks have started coming out of the woodwork to prosthelitize things like bitcoin,

OK, fair point about bitcoin. But other than that, I really feel like the cypherpunk types have been fairly invisible lately. Maybe it's just that there was a certain period of time, back in the /. heyday, when discussions of cryptography, surveillance, data-havens, etc. were at a peak, and now they've leveled off. But in any case, I would argue that we (still) need an active and efficient cypherpunk community to promote technological freedom.

m0nastic6• 14 years ago

I think what's changed is that the discussions during the heyday were around the technology, which at the time was the limiting factor. The technology isn't really the issue anymore (with some specific exceptions).

The problem with crypto-currency isn't the "crypto", it's the "currency". I think that same phenomena is the culprit for most "cyperpunk-related" discussions.

10 years ago I'd have said that I was really hoping for the "Star Trek" future, but that if I was forced to bet, I'd bet on a "BladeRunner" future being way more likely.

Now I'm old, and I think if I was forced to bet, "Brazil" is a more likely model (the movie, not the country).

But I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing the value of a healthy "cypherpunk" community. I think you can look at a lot of things that came out of the original community and see value there.

astrodust• 14 years ago

The problem is the vision these techno-libertarians promote is one of isolation, not connection. The world has shifted. People want to share. They want privacy, but when privacy must be eroded to allow greater connectivity, they trade it willingly.

Crypto solutions lead to technical complexity which in turn raises the barrier to entry and makes it difficult for outsiders to join in. It's some kind of isolationist community. Who uses Diaspora, anyway? Anyone? Doesn't it offer precisely what everyone's allegedly in need of?

ephermata• 14 years ago

Start a mailing list, start recruiting people to post...who knows, maybe you'll set up the new place?

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

Count me in. My initial focus is going to be on the RTP area, and trying to get a meatspace meetup going, that caters to folks of this mindset. But if a new hub for cypherpunk (and related) thought emerged online, I'd definitely join in.

DanBC2• 14 years ago

> I do wish that there existed a forum for some of the discussions that used to actually happen on the cypherpunks list

You may find some interested people in UK Crypto (but obviously I'm not suggestion you spam their list). (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/ukcrypto)

> This group is comprised of people with a professional interest in the formulation and content of UK government policy on the provision, use and control of encryption products and services in the UK. It was formed in response to the 1996 announcement of UK policy on the provision of encryption services on telecommunications networks.

> The mailing list is unmoderated, but only subscribed members can post. Please try and restrict postings to UK Encryption law and try not to stray onto general cryptology topics.

apembroke• 14 years ago

> I do wish that there existed a forum for some of the discussions that used to actually happen on the cypherpunks list

check out the bitcoin forums. Honestly, I think the op has been hiding under a rock for the past couple years. Bitcoin and tor are great examples, but there are plenty of other disruptive projects out there, like loom, open-transactions, ripple. Crypto-anarchists didn't go away, they got to work creating practical applications that can change people's lives, and not just for the geeks.

dredmorbius2• 14 years ago

What's your gripe on in-browser JS crypto?

Is it worse than nothing, or just bad?

What alternatives would you suggest?

m0nastic6• 14 years ago

My gripe is the same as the overwhelming majority of people in my industry: that given unlimited resources, in your wildest dreams you couldn't imagine a less hospitable place for cryptographic integrity than the DOM.

Some people are of the opinion that the usefulness of being able to do crypto in people's browsers outweighs exactly how inhospitable it is. I don't share this opinion.

In most circumstances, something bad might be preferable to nothing at all. I think crypto is one of the rare exceptions where "bad" is actually worse than none.

My alternative suggestions are conservative: PGP and TLS

These suggestions aren't particularly exciting, however, so people keep looking for other, newer, ones.

I'm actually in the small minority of security people who don't think it's feasible to discourage people from trying to muck around with crypto. It's like sitting a kid in front of a television,handing them a video game controller, and then telling them not to play video games.

Crypto is an attractive nuisance. It also seems like it answers a lot of our problems (it actually answers far less than we think, and just creates new ones in their place), so people naturally are inclined to experiment with it.

So I hope someday to be wrong about crypto in the browser, because it'd be great. But right now, it's sort of like trying to fancy up a glory hole.

zdw• 14 years ago

As long as they stick to distribution and advocacy rather than creating new tech, I'm all for this. Crypto is very hard to do right - one example from last year:

http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-18-tarsnap-critical-...

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

Crypto is very hard to do right

Very true. And simply raising awareness of that point itself, is a valuable thing. That said, there are (or were) actual skilled professionals, with the knowledge to create new crypto schemes, etc. in the cypherpunk community. But clearly not everyone falls into that bucket.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

Not only is it hard to do right, it seems like its often even hard to take crypto that's done right and use it right.

thechut• 14 years ago

Maybe these people feel it's no longer safe for them to be so vocal about it. Maybe even for the exact reasons you are mentioning they should be angered by.

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

Maybe these people feel it's no longer safe for them to be so vocal about it.

Could be. And that's a pretty sad thought, given that we (those of us in the USA anyway) live in a country where "free speech" has traditionally been one of the most fundamental and cherished principles.

unimpressive2• 14 years ago

Ding! Ding! Ding! I think we have a winner. It's a self reinforcing effect too. The less people that speak out the less people that speak out because nobody else is.

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

Yes, that's part of the reason for this blog post, and why I posted it here to HN. Sometimes you need somebody to stir the pot a little and try to stimulate the conversation.

m0nastic6• 14 years ago

I don't think that fear is really the culprit here.

People on the internet don't seem to have trouble speaking out about all sorts of other things.

I think the issues which are fundamental to the cypherpunk ethos (if such a thing can be said to exist‡) just aren't things most people care about. And you can totally make a valid argument that this will pretty much ensure that the worst-case scenario is the one that will come to pass (if you are so inclined).

But I don't get the impression that there's this large contingent of people who are actually interested in this who aren't participating because they're worried. I'd love to be wrong though, as that would mean that there could be a much more lively and productive community to swell up.

‡ although this is as good a stab at it as any: http://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/cyphernomicon.t...

nerdfiles• 14 years ago

It's not safe to be vocal as this requires one to verbalize and linguistically behave as per needs of audience.

Most of the time the jargon of technology upsets the cognitive sensibilities of the layperson. At the same time, negative feedback to the presentation of one's technical views generally determines a depressive curve in one's perceived value of one's abilities.

This is why khanacademy.com, coursera.com et al. are becoming successfully: the technology _is enabling_ general audience to see the posterchildren of our industry. We are expected to not simply learn from their exams, but are at once being forced to adopt a teaching method. They're talking about what we are supposed to already know. Are they doing it better? Their demonstrations are tests of our capacities as contributors to society a al Google, all the way down to overworked Java veteran. Your debt to society is the repetition of your reputation. You'd rather be talking about optimization than sitcoms anyway, and most people are talking about sitcoms or Facebook. As social media blurs the line between what is on "TV" and what is on "the screen," those in the know will more readily experience the curse of knowledge. It supplies a baseline for conversation, for one: one is able to engage in demonstration and dialectic, which is antagonistic to idle conversation. It's constant what one's professing of one's Web-enabled escapades outlines a narrative pre-established by user interface workflows and business and advertisement initiatives. Constantly does this run through the minds of rational technophobists. And we are fast approaching a reality where passive adoption of the narrative of another as regards one's Internet identity sharply delineates character of lifestyle, more readily than simply wearing a certain manner of garment or having certain sense of taste. One is deciding on a question of openness, the last vestige of autonomy. Our opinions, then, I believe rest on principles of assessment for qualities of openness: organized openness, informed openness, civil openness.

A society can be "open" where information in general may be a clutter of human desire, -- or an organized system of thought. Many question the "aesthetic" of technologists, the ethos. How much of that have we mismanaged, or is simply outside of our control, in a world rife with political disorganization and corruption? It is now easy for anyone to cook up Hitler-esque ethical quandaries against groups of programmers who only want to experiment with people, as Spinoza would put it, "as it follows from the nature of a triangle." We are seeing it now: the social risk of projects like Google Glass, tacocopter.com, etc. This is our experiment style, and now humans are the experiment.

Most people in developed countries are practicing hedonism. What more do you expect from the rest, in a world full of free info on how to compile apache or use beef and cheap Amazon supercomputers?

antihero• 14 years ago

I see the issue as being that secure tools, such as GnuPGP, are still way too complicated and confusing for the average activist to use, thus people don't bother and use low-tech solutions to communicate for day-to-day protesting. If someone is organising something big and scary, they'd learn to use PGP and use it.

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

I see the issue as being that secure tools, such as GnuPGP, are still way too complicated and confusing for the average activist to use

Yes, I think that is very true. That's why I think two of the goals of a modern cypherpunk movement should be to: A. educate people on how to use encryption and related tools, and B. work on making tools that are simpler to use / easier to understand in the first place.

ef4• 14 years ago

The advent of social networking can actually help make this stuff easier for normal people. The hardest part is managing a web of trust. If you can automate building your web of trust on top of existing social network connections, you can get strong crypto that's easy to use.

javert2• 14 years ago

There are just too many competing voices. For example, the "techno-libertarian" types have to "compete" with the voices of the net neutraily crowd, as well as the pro-piracy crowd. Unfortunately, all three camps use the same terminology to express totally different view and ideas.

I don't care to spend time advocating techno-libertarian positions (that I agree with), just to see a larger mass of piracy people [mis] using the same words (e.g. freedom, rights, etc.) to try to justify a position that I personally find abhorrent.

andrewcooke• 14 years ago

why compete? i saw the guy was a libertarian (and, perhaps worse, some kind of smelly metal head), which is not my scene at all, but i still emailed him to be added to any kind of list because i think privacy is important.

if the list ends up being for "crypto to avoid paying taxes so the poor die as darwin wanted" then sure, i wouldn't join. but i think there's a clear need for a unified voice on crypto and online rights.

worse, i think you are doing this a disservice, in that you're implying that these rights are only important for your group of people. these rights are important for all of us. even metal-head libertarians.

incidentally, i would also encourage people to donate to eff - almost all the free gifts they give you for donating are horrible, but the hat pin is actually really nice. so go buy a $100 dollar hat pin and help spread some good.

mindcrime8• 14 years ago

The thing about privacy is, you don't know what end it does serve. I personally am a Libertarian (and a metal-head, yes, although I'm getting too old for a lot of moshing and shit), but I certainly advocate for privacy rights independently of any other Libertarian position. If I'm using crypto to discuss my beliefs about ending tax-payer subsidized entitlement programs, others may simultaneously be using it to discuss their desire to raise taxes, end all private property and redistribute wealth "to each according to his need."

but i think there's a clear need for a unified voice on crypto and online rights.

Yes, this is one area where Libertarians and most left-leaning types can find some common ground.

javert2• 14 years ago

I'm not really responding to the idea of having a list; I'm responding to the quesiton of why advocacy of certain "libertarian crypto" type positions may have sort of gone away a lot lately.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a curmudgeon, but what I'm basically saying is that there are a lot of people out there arguing for inane positions, and it's drowning and/or cancelling out the people arguing for good positions. And just generally makes their lives less enjoyable.

stretchwithme• 14 years ago

Maybe they are all exposing their private data to Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/technolibertarians/

overshard2• 14 years ago

It's impossible to provide good tools for your average user without getting some government actively working to destroy it. There are already great tools for experienced users but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get my friends to send email using PGP even if I install it and set it up for them. They seem confused by the whole concept.

Aloisius• 14 years ago

Good crypto exists, but governments aren't what is holding users back anymore. The fact of the matter is, crypto generally makes everything harder, so users don't use it.

overshard2• 14 years ago

That's basically what I said I think? At least what I tried to say, but yes, exactly.

_delirium2• 14 years ago

I think there's a bit more focus on networks than on cryptography lately among freelance activist type people. But if you include that, there is still substantial activity. Tor is going fairly strongly, Retroshare has recently gotten a big uptake in publicity, and some other darknet projects have been floated. The focus seems to be on hard-to-disrupt connectivity, with some indirect association with groups like Wikileaks who aim at using that connectivity to promote state/corporate transparency (which is actually pretty close to an old-school "information wants to be free!" agenda). In Europe, there's also been a rise in "Pirate Parties", which despite their name are more generally interested in techno-freedom issues, not purely copyright-infringement issues.

nirvana3• 14 years ago

This is the inevitable result of social news sites. Most people are not libertarian, and so they down vote comments that don't fit their ideology. On Reddit in many subreddits (including the politics one everyone is subscribed to by default) they practice outright censorship.

Here on HN the down vote seems to be deployed for disagreement, even against well written comments that include substantiation.

Fortunately, Libertarianism is far more mainstream now, even if the Ron Paul movement has managed to dilute it to some extent.

gavanwoolery2• 14 years ago

Great comment. Unfortunately, Libertarians get too closely associated with Republicans, because the sad truth is that many people do not even know what Libertarians stand for. I have always said that in the simplest terms, Libertarians are really just interested in freedom - social freedom (like Democrats) and financial freedom (like Republicans).

mindcruzer• 14 years ago

This reminds me of a quote: "Democrats want the government to be their mother; republicans want the government to be their father. Libertarians just want to be treated like adults."

Zak• 14 years ago

Fortunately, Libertarianism is far more mainstream now, even if the Ron Paul movement has managed to dilute it to some extent.

I think that may be inherent to making anything more mainstream. It's useful to have people who remain attached to the core ideology of a movement, but getting things done generally requires working with other people. If the Ron Paul movement brings a bunch of people to libertarianism then other libertarians should support it, even if Ron Paul is pretty far from their idea of the ideal libertarian candidate.

I'm the creator and moderator of /r/ronpaul. In my observation, the idea of voting based on quality rather than agreement is entirely absent from larger political subreddits. People vote to promote their side and are particularly likely to vote that way in a fight that has degenerated in to name calling when the ideal situation would be downvotes for all involved.

Retric• 14 years ago

That's part of it, but also the 'core' of most political movements tend to be whack jobs. The type of people that say "Keep the government out of my medicare!!!" are often willingness support the cause both financially and by donating their time, even if they don't actually understand what's going on. After all it's not really rational to spend but so much effort when it's unlikely that you will make any type of noticeable difference.

_delirium2• 14 years ago

Does people getting downvoted on /r/politics really have a strong impact on what technologies are being built to advance freedom? Somehow I would guess that absolutely anything could happen in /r/politics and it would be irrelevant to changing that outcome; the question of downvotes on reddit, in any direction, feels more like a sideshow debate than where real action is likely to be found. I'm not sure it's even much of a tech crowd, since reddit is pretty mainstream (among young people) these days, not limited to techies like 90s internet discussion boards were.

Around here I see a lot of libertarians, unless my perception is somehow skewed. I certainly feel left of the HN mainstream, anyway, though it's not a monolithic community. (My own take on crypto-anarchism and cypherpunk is more a skepticism of organized power in general, whether it's a state, corporation, or religion, which is a bit different from libertarianism per se.)

batista5• 14 years ago

>Most people are not libertarian, and so they down vote comments that don't fit their ideology.

Libertarianism is an ideology too.

Wikipedia: "Libertarianism is generally considered to be the group of political philosophies which emphasize freedom, individual liberty, and voluntary association. Libertarianism is variously defined by sources. There is no general consensus among scholars on the precise definition nor on how one should use the term as a historical category. Libertarians generally advocate a society with little or no government power."

All of these beliefs reek ideology. You don't get a free pass saying "I'm for freedom". Not only because there are different kinds of freedoms, but also because any direction you pursue is full of assumptions of what society is and should be, what is the best for the individual and society, etc.

But the best sign that you are advocating an ideology, is if you are considering all other beliefs as ideologies and not yours. Like the above comment does.

Politics entails ideology. Presenting your view as some kind of empirical hard science is bullshit. And, as an aside, it's what the so-called "vulgar marxists" did.

(Not only Libertarianism is ideology, it's also mostly geographically and culturally constrained: it's first and foremost an American product).

jerf• 14 years ago

I don't do this often, but I want to tell you I downvoted you for passionately arguing against a strawman. I can find no evidence that nirvana ever claimed libertarianism wasn't an ideology, only that it is a minority one. Unless perhaps there was an edit?

StephenFalken• 14 years ago

For those that haven't yet had the chance of reading a foundational text related to Cypherpunks and Crypto-Anarchy, there is "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" by Tim May (back then a Chief Scientist at Intel) -> http://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/crypto-anarchy.html

pnathan• 14 years ago

I see the core ideas being diluted into Wikileaks, Anonymous, etc. Those are bad representations of the core ideas.

There are not many people who can lucidly translate the understanding of technology's issues into the language of non-techies. It's not sufficient to be technically correct: it's required that the presentation works as well.

Techies seem to have allergies to other cultures that don't have similar value systems and have largely failed in translating our concerns to the broader world. The old word 'luser' adequately explains our shortcoming.

sneak2• 14 years ago

Diluted? They're the same people.

sneak2• 14 years ago

The underground is still out there. It's just underground.

Get in touch if you'd like to be invited.

srconstantin• 14 years ago

I'm skeptical.

All of the articles cited are indeed about civil liberties, but I don't see them as being problems that can necessarily be improved by developing better cryptography.

The social network propaganda isn't so much of a technological problem as a social one -- people assume that everyone's using social networks in a straightforward way, to express themselves and connect with friends, even though they have the capacity to be used in many other ways, including deceptively.

The NSA email-hoarding thing is also a social problem -- encryption exists, it's just that nobody uses it.

The "pre-crime screening" appears to be a statistical model. I don't yet know if there's a science of counter-machine-learning -- that is, creating examples that are hard for models to classify, analogously to making harder and harder CAPTCHAs. If government gets better at data science, what civil libertarians will need is not better encriptions, but different techniques designed to protect against statistical intrusions.

Likewise, I don't think better crypto is in any straightforward way a protection against biometrics or government bills to take down certain websites.

If he's saying "we need more libertarians and people concerned about civil liberties," then he's right. But I'm not even sure there are fewer than there used to be (look at the backlash to SOPA). I just suspect think there was a time when people had more hope in purely technological fixes to government abuses. I know some old-time crypto-anarchists, and they're largely disappointed with how things have turned out. In the end, preventing the abuse of government power is a hard problem, and it looks less likely that a small set of tech breakthroughs will suddenly make civil liberties violations obsolete.

cabalamat• 14 years ago

> all of the Cypherpunks, Crypto-Anarchists and techno-libertarians seem to have gone into hiding, or disappeared.

Maybe they joined the Pirate Party?

drstrangevibes• 14 years ago

maybe they are just keeping their communication private by using encryption.

rdl• 14 years ago

To be honest, more crypto got shipped outside the cypherpunks than within. PGP (of debatable utility now) and otr (the chat encryption) are the main useful systems produced by cypherpunkdom (mixmaster and tor (sort of) too); SSL, Start TLS, IPsec, ssh, ... came from outside.

I'd rather see security and cryptography packaged so it can be widely used by normal app developers, vs. relying on privacy/security aficionados to do everything.

JoachimSchipper3• 14 years ago

SSL, IPsec and the like are for banks, PGP / otr / mixmaster / tor are for dissidents and paranoids. I don't think these are equivalent. (Of course, SSL is very useful.)

gbog• 14 years ago

I don't read Slashdot or Reddit but on HN I have felt a slow drift from core technology topics towards design and UI. The Applemania is one of the culprit here, I believe.

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

I am lucky in that 1) my company is really trying to come up with a solution to allow individuals to easily keep their privacy and 2) our funders are strong libertarians who want to see this succeed more than they want an instant return. It's a difficult place to build a business, and impatient investors would make it impossible.

EGreg3• 14 years ago

Any chance we can get in touch? My company's building something along similar lines, that will help improve privacy all over the web. And it has taken us two years to build the foundation, piece by piece. Contact me at http://qbix.com/about

noarchy• 14 years ago

I hope you succeed in what you are setting out to do, if your goal is to truly protect privacy. I have to admit, though, that I am highly skeptical if the solution turns out to be closed, and proprietary. It is a huge risk to place one's security in the hands of something that is a black box.

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

Thank you. I think about this a lot because I totally agree with you. I'm continually asking what it would take for me to trust me. One thing I know is we can't reach the end straight from the beginning, so we are going to move incrementally.

Eventually, everything has to be open. I wouldn't trust a company with 100% of my data that wasn't. However, there is 10% I would trust with a company like mine today, assuming I got benefits in other areas, and that's where we are starting.

chris123• 14 years ago

On the margin, there are some people (Brill) who are self-censoring to avoid/minimize the attention of the ever-growing police state. The hardest core "Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 3: We had to Destroy Democracy in Order to Save It": http://goo.gl/s7u6T

DrWhax• 14 years ago

I think you are looking in the wrong direction, but things have changed over the years as well. This group of people might not be well organised anymore in terms of a mailinglist. But projects like the Torproject, EFF and pirate parties are doing better then ever. They got more organised and decentralised.

A few good references: https://www.calyxinstitute.org/ and https://crypto.is/ | threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/behind-scenes-crypto-project-083011

We are rebuilding crypto.is and moving the site to other servers, we'll be back soon, you can find us at irc.oftc.net #cryptodotis

Time for a return of the Cypherpunks, Crypto-Anarchists & Techno-Libertarians?

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