"The key question at the heart of the cypherpunk movement was not freedom, but the crisis of freedom in a situation of extensive social control of dominant institutions over private individuals." — Enrico Beltramini (Against technocratic authoritarianism, 2020) #cypherpunk #freedom #surveillance #control

"Using modern methods of public-key encryption and anonymous 'digital cash,' it would be possible to make such awards in such a way so that nobody knows who is getting awarded the money, only that the award is being given." — Jim Bell (Assassination Politics, 1997) #encryption #digitalcash #anonymity #privacy

"That's why our primary defense isn't law, but technology." — Julian Assange (Forbes, 2010) #law #defense #wikileaks

"By understanding that cypherpunk theory and practice each consist of two complementary dynamics—privacy/transparency, pro-active/re-active—it becomes possible to understand that the cypherpunk movement provides the basis for activists and citizens to resist large surveillance institutions." — Patrick D. Anderson (Of Cypherpunks and Sousveillance, 2022) #cypherpunk #privacy #transparency #resistance #surveillance

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." — Edward Snowden (Reddit AMA, 2015) #privacy #freespeech

"Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age." — Eric Hughes (A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, 1993) #privacy #manifesto

"Since cryptography is a tool for shifting power, the people who know this subject well, like it or not, inherit some of that power." — Phillip Rogaway (The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work, 2015) #cryptography

"What is the greatest unsolved problem in cryptography today? Lack of user awareness." — Martin Hellman (Charles Babbage Institute Oral History, 2004) #cryptography

"We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence." — Eric Hughes (A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, 1993) #privacy #government #corporations

"We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity." — John Perry Barlow (A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, 1996) #freespeech #conformity

"Power over others' privacy is the quintessential kind of power in the digital age" — Carissa Véliz (Privacy is power (Aeon), 2019) #privacy #power #digitalage #surveillance

"The age of the printable gun has arrived, and there's nothing anyone can do about it." — Cody Wilson (Come and Take It, 2016) #3dprinting

"The cypherpunk movement provides an intelligible, viable, and effective model of data activism and strategic agency." — Patrick D. Anderson (Of Cypherpunks and Sousveillance, 2022) #cypherpunk #dataactivism #resistance #agency

"If we had a mapping which took the fixed digicash bits onto the interesting parts of the fractal, then fake cash would not produce pretty pictures, while real cash would produce some part of a beautiful fractal. Again, you would have validation and beauty being tied together." — Hal Finney (The Beauty of ECash, 1994) #digitalcash #cryptography

"The scandal isn't how they're breaking the law. The scandal is that they don't have to break the law." — Edward Snowden (Joe Rogan Experience, 2019) #surveillance #law #government #legal

"Because Bitcoin's DMMS is computationally, and therefore thermodynamically, very expensive, alternatives have been proposed which seek to be economically and environmentally more efficient. One popular alternative, proof-of-stake, is frequently proposed as a mechanism for a cheap distributed consensus. As argued by the author in 2014, this is simply not workable." — Andrew Poelstra (On Stake and Consensus, 2015) #bitcoin #consensus #cryptocurrency

"Governments see their powers eroded by these technologies, and are taking various well-known steps to try to limit the use of strong crypto by their subjects." — Tim May (Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities, 1994) #government #cryptography #regulation

"When Satoshi announced Bitcoin on the cryptography mailing list, he got a skeptical reception at best. Cryptographers have seen too many grand schemes by clueless noobs." — Hal Finney (BitcoinTalk Forum, 2013) #bitcoin #satoshi #history

"Intelligence agencies keep things secret because they often violate the rule of law or of good behavior." — Julian Assange (Forbes, 2010) #intelligence #secrecy #law #government

"I'd like to think that decades from now, people will look back and see this time as the dawning of a new era of individual empowerment and freedom." — Hal Finney (BitcoinTalk Forum, 2013) #bitcoin #freedom