noxz.tech/articles/sic_manifestos/manifestos/the_crypto_anarchist_manifesto.txt
1The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto
2Timothy C. May
3
4tcmay@netcom.com
5
6A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy.
7
8Computer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for individuals and
9groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner.
10Two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts
11without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other. Interactions
12over networks will be untraceable, via extensive re-routing of encrypted packets and
13tamper-proof boxes which implement cryptographic protocols with nearly perfect assurance
14against any tampering. Reputations will be of central importance, far more important
15in dealings than even the credit ratings of today. These developments will alter
16completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic
17interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even alter the nature
18of trust and reputation.
19
20The technology for this revolution -- and it surely will be both a social and economic
21revolution -- has existed in theory for the past decade. The methods are based upon
22public-key encryption, zero-knowledge interactive proof systems, and various software
23protocols for interaction, authentication, and verification. The focus has until now
24been on academic conferences in Europe and the U.S., conferences monitored closely
25by the National Security Agency. But only recently have computer networks and personal
26computers attained sufficient speed to make the ideas practically realizable. And the
27next ten years will bring enough additional speed to make the ideas economically
28feasible and essentially unstoppable. High-speed networks, ISDN, tamper-proof boxes,
29smart cards, satellites, Ku-band transmitters, multi-MIPS personal computers, and
30encryption chips now under development will be some of the enabling technologies.
31
32The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing
33national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders,
34and fears of societal disintegration. Many of these concerns will be valid; crypto
35anarchy will allow national secrets to be trade freely and will allow illicit and
36stolen materials to be traded. An anonymous computerized market will even make possible
37abhorrent markets for assassinations and extortion. Various criminal and foreign
38elements will be active users of CryptoNet. But this will not halt the spread of
39crypto anarchy.
40
41Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of medieval guilds
42and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic methods fundamentally alter
43the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions.
44Combined with emerging information markets, crypto anarchy will create a liquid market
45for any and all material which can be put into words and pictures. And just as a seemingly
46minor invention like barbed wire made possible the fencing-off of vast ranches and
47farms, thus altering forever the concepts of land and property rights in the frontier
48West, so too will the seemingly minor discovery out of an arcane branch of mathematics
49come to be the wire clippers which dismantle the barbed wire around intellectual
50property.
51
52Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!
