"Just as a merchant will accept cash from a customer without demanding proof of identity, we also want our electronic money system to allow similar transactions to take place, without the identity of the people involved being revealed to each other, or even to someone who is monitoring the network." — Hal Finney (Protecting privacy with electronic cash, 1993) #digitalcash #anonymity #privacy

"You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts." — John Perry Barlow (A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, 1996) #government #regulation #cyberspace

"If the federal government had access to every email you've ever written and every phone call you've ever made, it's almost certain that they could find something you've done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don't know it yet." — Moxie Marlinspike (We Should All Have Something To Hide, 2013) #privacy #surveillance #law #nothingtohide

"I think the greed and hype and nattering about 'to the Moon!' and 'HODL' is the biggest hype wagon I've ever seen." — Tim May (CoinDesk, 2018) #bitcoin #hype #greed #criticism

"Even more than monetary gain, personal data bestows power on those who collect and analyse it, and that is what makes it so coveted." — Carissa Véliz (Privacy is power (Aeon), 2019) #data #power #surveillance #privacy

"It is important to realize that while distributed consensus is a hard problem, ordinary consensus is much easier and better studied, and can be solved some trillions of times more efficiently by use of trusted identifiable signing parties. Therefore, cryptocurrencies which compromise by introducing trusted parties, even under limited circumstances, should consider whether their new trust model is one for which consensus is easily achieved by some other mechanism." — Andrew Poelstra (On Stake and Consensus, 2015) #consensus #trust #cryptocurrency #bitcoin

"By its very nature, it favors the bright (who can put it to use) over the dull (who cannot). It favors the adaptable (who are quick to see the merit of the new) over the sluggish (who cling to time-tested ways). And what two better words are there to describe government bureaucracy than 'dull' and 'sluggish'?" — Chuck Hammill (From Crossbows To Cryptography: Techno-Thwarting The State, 1987) #government #freedom

"User-controlled privacy is not a niche; it's a fundamental building block of a healthy and stable society." — Zooko Wilcox (Cypherpunk Technologies Press Release, 2023) #privacy

"I've noticed that cryptographic graybeards (I was in my mid 50's) tend to get cynical. I was more idealistic; I have always loved crypto, the mystery and the paradox of it." — Hal Finney (Bitcoin and Me, 2013) #cryptography #cypherpunk

"Their non-anonymity also means that a dedicated attacker will eventually always be able to attack the system." — Andrew Poelstra (On Stake and Consensus, 2015) #anonymity #security

"These legal victories would probably not have been possible without the ability to break the law." — Moxie Marlinspike (We Should All Have Something To Hide, 2013) #law #civildisobedience #democracy #change

"Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — have been given an enormous privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out." — Aaron Swartz (Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, 2008) #openaccess

"In a world without cash (a bearer and peer-to-peer form of money) all transactions must be necessarily intermediated by financial institutions. Intermediated transactions are by their nature subject to surveillance and control." — Jerry Brito (The Case for Electronic Cash, 2019) #cash #surveillance #control #intermediation

"I don't want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under." — Edward Snowden (The Guardian Interview, 2013) #surveillance #privacy #freedom

"I never understood the classical notion of a key distribution center, which is a trusted resource that you have to share." — Whitfield Diffie (ITAS Interview, 1992) #cryptography #trust

"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

"There is a war going on between those who would liberate crypto and those who would suppress it. The seemingly innocuous bunch strewn around this conference room represents the vanguard of the pro-crypto forces." — Steven Levy (Crypto Rebels (WIRED), 1993) #cryptography #cypherpunk #resistance #government

"The law enforcement folks were stuck longer in the hard-core phase, and still are, even now using Bin Laden to suggest that crypto has GONE TOO FAR, damn it." — Steven Levy (The WELL - Crypto Discussion, 2001) #lawenforcement #cryptography #government #terrorism

"Somebody had to be the first one to start banging on the Berlin Wall, with a sledgehammer, in 1989. Somebody had to be the first to walk through. Somebody had to be the first to stand up and say, 'Enough!'" — Jim Bell (Assassination Politics, 1997) #resistance #freedom

"Efforts to influence the government (e.g., lobbying and propaganda) are important only in so far as to delay its attempted crackdown long enough for the technology to mature and come into wide use." — Wei Dai (Cypherpunks mailing list, 1995) #lobbying