A Framework for Privacy, Cryptography, Decentralization and Digital Sovereignty
In my illustration, entitled: “The Architect’s Blueprint”, I stand over an enormous holographic architectural table containing the blueprint for a sovereign digital civilization. Eight illuminated sections of the plan correspond to the principles.
One Year of Cypherpunkism
One year ago, on October 10, 2010, I introduced Cypherpunkism as a philosophy of individual sovereignty in the technological age.
Its premise was simple:
Digital freedom must be embedded into the architecture of technology itself.
Laws remain necessary.
Institutions remain necessary.
Ethical conduct remains necessary.
But the freedom of the individual should not depend exclusively upon institutional promises.
A promise can be withdrawn.
A policy can be changed.
A company can be acquired.
A government can become more authoritarian.
A database can be breached.
A trusted intermediary can fail.
Technology should therefore give individuals practical methods of protecting their autonomy even when institutions become unreliable.
The Cypherpunkist Manifesto, published after the founding essay, translated this philosophy into a broader declaration of digital rights and responsibilities.
This article performs a different task.
It formally develops the eight foundational principles of Cypherpunkism:
- Privacy
- Cryptography
- Decentralization
- Individual Control
- Open Knowledge
- Open Architecture
- Freedom to Build
- Digital Sovereignty
These principles do not stand independently.
They form a system.
Privacy defines the boundary.
Cryptography protects it.
Decentralization disperses power.
Individual control determines who possesses authority.
Open knowledge makes understanding possible.
Open architecture preserves alternatives.
Freedom to build allows better systems to emerge.
Digital sovereignty is the condition they collectively seek to establish.
I. Privacy: The Individual Must Control Disclosure
Privacy is frequently confused with secrecy.
Secrecy concerns information deliberately concealed because its existence must remain unknown.
Privacy concerns the ability of a person to establish boundaries around his life.
A person closes a door.
A family speaks in confidence.
A voter enters a private booth.
A patient discusses his health with a doctor.
A business protects confidential correspondence.
A person seals a letter before sending it.
None of these actions necessarily indicates wrongdoing.
They represent ordinary boundaries within a free society.
The transition from physical communication to electronic communication must not eliminate those boundaries.
Eric Hughes argued that privacy requires the ability to determine what information about oneself is revealed and to whom. Cypherpunkism adopts this distinction and expresses it as a principle of sovereignty:
Privacy is sovereignty over disclosure.
The individual should possess meaningful authority over:
- what information is collected;
- what information is retained;
- what information is disclosed;
- who receives that information;
- how long it remains available;
- and whether separate portions of his life are permanently connected.
This principle does not require absolute anonymity in every circumstance.
Contracts may require identification.
Courts may require evidence.
Organizations may legitimately maintain certain records.
Criminal acts may require targeted investigation.
But accountability should not become an excuse for universal identification, unlimited collection or permanent observation.
A system should collect what it legitimately requires—not everything technology makes possible.
The Cypherpunkist principle is therefore:
Reveal what is necessary. Protect what is not.
II. Cryptography: Freedom Made Technically Enforceable
Privacy without protection is merely a preference.
A private message stored in readable form on another organization’s computer remains vulnerable to employees, intruders, governments, mistakes and future changes in policy.
Cryptography introduces a different kind of boundary.
It allows mathematics to determine who can read information, verify a message or authorize an action.
A legal rule may declare:
You should not read this information.
Strong encryption can establish:
You cannot read this information without the appropriate key.
This distinction is central to Cypherpunkism.
Cryptography does not replace law, ethics or political institutions.
It strengthens the individual where dependence upon those institutions would otherwise be absolute.
It can protect correspondence.
It can verify authorship.
It can establish the integrity of records.
It can authorize transactions.
It can permit selective disclosure.
It can give individuals direct control over certain forms of digital property.
The ability to use strong cryptography should therefore not belong exclusively to governments, militaries, banks and large corporations.
Ordinary people should also possess keys.
Cryptography is applied freedom.
A society that recognizes privacy in principle but prevents individuals from using the technologies necessary to protect it recognizes privacy only conditionally.
Cypherpunkism therefore defends the legitimate development, distribution and use of strong cryptography.
III. Decentralization: A Technological Check on Power
Every centralized system creates a center of authority.
Whoever controls that center may control participation, records, transactions, identities or communication.
Centralization is not automatically oppressive.
It can improve efficiency.
It can simplify administration.
It can enable rapid decisions and coordinated action.
There are legitimate reasons for centralized organizations to exist.
Cypherpunkism is not the simplistic proposition that everything centralized is evil and everything decentralized is good.
It asks a more precise question:
How much power should any single point possess?
If one company controls the only platform, it can determine who may participate.
If one institution controls the authoritative database, it can alter or suppress the record.
If one intermediary is required for every transaction, it can prevent transactions.
If one server is essential to a network, disabling that server may disable everyone.
Decentralization provides technological checks and balances.
Distributed networks can reduce dependence upon one operator.
Peer-to-peer systems can permit direct interaction.
Redundancy can make systems more resistant to failure or suppression.
Open participation can allow new operators to enter without receiving permission from an existing gatekeeper.
Bitcoin is an early and still experimental demonstration of this principle. It combines digital signatures, proof-of-work and a peer-to-peer network to maintain an electronic transaction history without placing the entire system under a single financial institution.
Its ultimate economic significance remains uncertain.
Its architectural significance is already clear:
A function traditionally assigned to a central intermediary can, under certain conditions, be distributed across a network.
Decentralization is a check on concentrated power—not a guarantee of virtue.
Decentralized systems can still be badly designed, captured by powerful participants or rendered impractical by complexity.
They must be judged by results, not by labels.
The purpose is not decentralization for its own sake.
The purpose is to remove unnecessary points at which one actor can dominate everyone else.
IV. Individual Control: The User Must Possess Meaningful Authority
The digital world is changing the meaning of possession.
A person may call an account “mine” while the service provider retains the authority to disable it.
He may call information “my data” while another organization determines whether he can retrieve, transfer or delete it.
He may call a digital identity “my identity” while its authoritative record belongs entirely to an institution.
He may believe he possesses digital property while another party controls the credential required to access it.
Cypherpunkism distinguishes between nominal ownership and effective control.
Control of the key creates technological authority.
Where practical, individuals should possess meaningful control over the keys, credentials and information governing their digital lives.
This includes the ability to:
- secure private communications;
- authorize actions without unnecessary intermediaries;
- retain copies of personal information;
- move between compatible services;
- verify important records;
- and recover from the failure of a provider.
Individual control also creates individual responsibility.
A person who controls a key must protect it.
A lost key may mean lost access.
A stolen key may allow unauthorized action.
A system designed for sovereignty must therefore consider security, recovery and usability—not merely theoretical control.
A technology that technically gives users authority but is too difficult for ordinary people to operate has not completed its task.
Individual control must become practical control.
V. Open Knowledge: Understanding Reduces Dependency
A person cannot be technologically sovereign if he is prohibited from understanding the systems upon which he depends.
Modern digital systems are complex.
Cryptography is complex.
Computer networks are complex.
Electronic money is complex.
Complexity creates specialization, and specialization is necessary.
But complexity can also create permanent dependency.
If only a small technical class understands the architecture governing society, everyone else must trust that class without possessing the ability to question or verify it.
Cypherpunkism therefore treats education as part of sovereignty.
Research should circulate.
Technical documentation should remain accessible.
Protocols should be explainable.
People should be free to study cryptography, decentralized networks, digital identity and electronic exchange.
This principle influenced my establishment of Crypto Chain University in 2010 as an open repository for research and education concerning cryptography, cryptocurrency, blockchain-related technologies and decentralized digital infrastructure.
Open knowledge does not mean that every piece of information must be public.
Personal information should remain protected.
Security credentials must remain confidential.
Private correspondence remains private.
The distinction is important:
The knowledge required to understand a system should be open. The private information entrusted to that system should be protected.
An informed individual can question.
An informed individual can verify.
An informed individual can choose.
An informed individual can build an alternative.
Open knowledge reduces dependency and strengthens digital sovereignty.
VI. Open Architecture: Freedom Requires Technological Exit
Open knowledge concerns the ability to understand.
Open architecture concerns the ability to participate, interoperate and leave.
A platform may allow a person to enter easily while making departure extremely costly.
His contacts may exist only inside one network.
His photographs may be stored in a proprietary format.
His professional identity may depend upon one company.
His correspondence may be inaccessible outside one service.
The more difficult it becomes to leave, the more authority the platform acquires.
Freedom requires alternatives.
Open protocols allow independent developers to create different implementations.
Interoperable systems permit users of different technologies to communicate.
Portable data allows a person to change providers without abandoning everything he has created.
Inspectable software allows claims about a system to be examined rather than merely accepted.
Open architecture does not require every company to surrender every invention.
Nor does it eliminate legitimate intellectual property.
It establishes a preference:
Where technological dependence creates substantial power, systems should preserve interoperability, portability and meaningful exit.
A user should be able to reject one provider without being expelled from digital society itself.
He should not become the permanent tenant of a digital landlord.
Open architecture preserves technological exit.
VII. Freedom to Build: Alternatives Must Be Permitted to Exist
A philosophy of technological freedom cannot survive if people are prohibited from building the technologies that make freedom possible.
Cryptographic software must be written.
Peer-to-peer protocols must be tested.
Privacy-enhancing systems must be developed.
Electronic money must be investigated.
Anonymous and pseudonymous communication must be studied.
Open-source alternatives must be allowed to compete with centralized platforms.
Eric Hughes summarized the practical character of the historical Cypherpunk movement in four words:
“Cypherpunks write code.”
The importance of this statement extends beyond programming.
It means that political ideas can be expressed through working systems.
A builder does not merely ask an institution to protect privacy.
He creates encryption software.
He does not merely criticize a centralized intermediary.
He develops a peer-to-peer alternative.
He does not merely demand transparency.
He publishes source code that can be inspected.
Society may legitimately punish harmful acts committed with technology.
Fraud remains fraud.
Theft remains theft.
Unauthorized intrusion remains an intrusion.
But society should be extremely cautious about criminalizing general-purpose technologies merely because they reduce institutional control.
Encryption can protect criminals.
It also protects families, businesses, journalists, governments and ordinary citizens.
Anonymous communication can be abused.
It can also protect whistleblowers, political dissidents and vulnerable individuals.
Peer-to-peer networks can distribute unlawful material.
They can also distribute lawful knowledge without requiring a central gatekeeper.
The possibility of misuse does not, by itself, invalidate a technology capable of legitimate and liberating use.
Builders also carry responsibilities.
They should consider security.
They should disclose limitations honestly.
They should minimize unnecessary data collection.
They should understand how their design choices distribute power.
Freedom to build is not freedom from criticism.
It is the freedom necessary for alternatives to exist.
VIII. Digital Sovereignty: Technology Must Serve the Individual
The first seven principles converge upon the eighth.
Digital Sovereignty.
Digital sovereignty is the capacity of an individual to retain meaningful authority over his identity, information, communications, digital possessions and participation in technological systems.
It does not mean that the individual exists without society.
It does not require the abolition of government.
It does not require the abolition of corporations.
It does not mean that every system must be decentralized.
It does not mean that every interaction must be anonymous.
It does not eliminate contracts, obligations or accountability.
Human beings depend upon cooperation.
Civilization depends upon institutions.
Sovereignty does not mean isolation.
It means retaining enough authority that cooperation does not become submission.
A digitally sovereign individual should, wherever reasonably possible, be able to:
- communicate privately;
- protect information through cryptography;
- control his own credentials and keys;
- choose what information he reveals;
- participate in open networks;
- access the knowledge required to understand those networks;
- move between compatible services;
- retain copies of his information;
- publish without unnecessary permission;
- transact without unnecessary intermediaries;
- and resist arbitrary technological exclusion.
Digital sovereignty exists when technology expands the individual’s meaningful choices.
It diminishes when participation requires the continuous surrender of privacy, identity, property and control.
The governing principle of Cypherpunkism is therefore:
Technology should enlarge the sovereignty of the individual rather than quietly transferring sovereignty to the institutions operating the technology.
My illustration “The Architect’s Blueprint” work-in-progress, I assemble the blueprint which rises into a functioning decentralized city around me – representing that cypherpunkism is a deliberate constructed system rather than merely an ideology.
The Eight Principles as One System
The eight principles should not be applied as isolated slogans.
A private system that gives one company absolute control is not necessarily sovereign.
A decentralized system that exposes every participant may not preserve privacy.
An open-source system that ordinary people cannot use may remain practically inaccessible.
A person who controls his keys but has no method of recovery may possess theoretical sovereignty accompanied by unacceptable risk.
A platform may publish technical documentation while preventing users from leaving.
A network may call itself open while requiring permission from a single authority to participate.
Cypherpunkism therefore judges systems by examining the complete distribution of power.
When evaluating a technology, we should ask:
- What information does the system collect?
- Can the individual decide what is disclosed?
- Is sensitive information protected by strong cryptography?
- Who possesses the keys?
- Who controls the authoritative record?
- Can one institution censor, exclude or alter the rules?
- Can independent parties inspect or implement the protocol?
- Can the individual retrieve his information and leave?
- Are people free to build competing alternatives?
- Does the system make the individual more powerful—or more dependent?
These questions reveal the political structure concealed inside technical design.
Code determines permissions.
Protocols determine relationships.
Databases determine memory.
Keys determine authority.
Interfaces determine what choices people can realistically exercise.
Code is political architecture.
Why These Principles Matter in 2011
Events during the past year have demonstrated that digital sovereignty is not an abstract concern.
In April 2011, Sony’s online networks suffered major intrusions. Sony later reported that personal information connected to millions of accounts may have been stolen.
The lesson extends beyond one company.
When vast quantities of personal information are concentrated inside centralized databases, one successful intrusion can expose millions of people.
In August and September, the compromise of the DigiNotar certificate authority resulted in fraudulent digital certificates, including one for Google. Mozilla responded by removing DigiNotar from its trusted root program.
This incident demonstrated that even cryptographic systems may contain centralized points of trust whose failure affects an enormous number of users.
Cryptography alone is not sufficient.
We must also examine architecture, implementation and control.
The Internet has simultaneously become an increasingly important instrument for political speech, access to information and public organization. In 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression examined the Internet’s growing importance to the exercise of human rights.
As communication moves online, the freedom to speak increasingly depends upon the freedom to access, publish and communicate through technological systems.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin continues to test whether a peer-to-peer network can support electronic exchange without a central monetary operator.
Whether Bitcoin succeeds or fails in its present form, the experiment raises a civilizational question:
Which functions currently controlled by intermediaries can be placed directly into the hands of individuals and networks?
This question will not be confined to money.
It may eventually concern identity.
Communication.
Publication.
Reputation.
Contracts.
Knowledge.
And perhaps systems that interact much more intimately with the human body.
The architecture being built now will determine where power resides later.
The Responsibilities of the Cypherpunkist
Sovereignty cannot consist only of demands upon others.
It also creates responsibilities.
The Cypherpunkist should:
- protect the privacy of others as he protects his own;
- learn how the systems he uses actually operate;
- secure his cryptographic keys and credentials;
- distinguish legitimate privacy from the concealment of harm;
- support open research and technological education;
- question unnecessary concentrations of digital power;
- evaluate decentralization critically rather than romantically;
- build or support practical alternatives;
- communicate the limitations of new technologies honestly;
- and remember that human freedom—not technology itself—is the objective.
Cypherpunkism is neither worship of code nor rejection of society.
Technology is a tool.
The human being is its purpose.
A Framework for the Digital Future
The digital world is still young.
Many of its most important institutions do not yet exist.
Its systems of identity, exchange, communication and ownership remain unfinished.
This gives the present generation an extraordinary responsibility.
We are not merely using the digital world.
We are determining its constitution.
We can construct a civilization in which every action requires identification.
Or one that permits selective disclosure.
We can construct systems that accumulate information indefinitely.
Or systems that collect only what is required.
We can construct platforms from which exit is practically impossible.
Or open protocols through which people retain alternatives.
We can place every important digital function beneath centralized control.
Or distribute authority where concentration creates unacceptable power.
These decisions may appear technical.
They are decisions about the future structure of human freedom.
The Eight Principles of Cypherpunkism provide a framework for making them:
Privacy establishes the boundary.
Cryptography protects the boundary.
Decentralization constrains concentrated power.
Individual control places authority in the hands of the user.
Open knowledge makes understanding possible.
Open architecture preserves alternatives and exit.
Freedom to build allows better systems to emerge.
Digital sovereignty ensures that technology remains the servant of humanity.
These principles will evolve as technology evolves.
Their applications will change.
New dangers will emerge.
New systems will create possibilities we cannot yet predict.
But the central question will remain:
Does technology empower the individual—or make the individual increasingly dependent upon those who control it?
Cypherpunkism chooses empowerment.
Privacy is sovereignty.
Cryptography is applied freedom.
Decentralization is a check on power.
Knowledge reduces dependency.
Open architecture preserves exit.
Cypherpunkists defend the freedom to build.
The individual must remain sovereign in the digital age.
References and Foundational Influences
- United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12. 1948.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights - Baran, Paul. On Distributed Communications: I. Introduction to Distributed Communications Networks. RAND Corporation, 1964.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/21970-document-01 - Diffie, Whitfield, and Martin E. Hellman. “New Directions in Cryptography.” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 22, No. 6, 1976, pp. 644–654. DOI: 10.1109/TIT.1976.1055638.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.1976.1055638 - Chaum, David. “Security Without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete.” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 28, No. 10, 1985, pp. 1030–1044. DOI: 10.1145/4372.4373.
https://chaum.com/security-without-identification/ - Stallman, Richard. The GNU Manifesto. 1985.
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html - May, Timothy C. The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto. Written in 1988 and circulated electronically to the Cypherpunks mailing list in 1992.
https://cryptochainuni.com/crypto-anarchist-manifesto/ - Hughes, Eric. A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto. March 9, 1993.
https://cryptochainuni.com/cypherpunk-manifesto/ - May, Timothy C. The Cyphernomicon: Cypherpunks FAQ and More. Version 0.666, September 10, 1994.
https://cryptochainuni.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Cyphernomicon-Timothy-C-May.txt - Barlow, John Perry. A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. February 8, 1996.
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/a-declaration-of-the-independence-of-cyberspace-1996 - Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Basic Books, 1999.
https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/1999/Code_And_Other_Laws_Of_Cyberspace - Nakamoto, Satoshi. “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” 2008.
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf - La Rue, Frank. “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression.” United Nations Human Rights Council, A/HRC/17/27, May 16, 2011.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-freedom-of-opinion-and-expression/annual-thematic-reports - Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment. “Sony Online Entertainment Announces Theft of Data from Its Systems.” May 3, 2011.
https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/News/Press/201105/11-0503E/ - Mozilla Security Blog. “Fraudulent *.google.com Certificate.” August 29, 2011.
https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2011/08/29/fraudulent-google-com-certificate/ - Mozilla Security Blog. “DigiNotar Removal Follow Up.” September 2, 2011.
https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2011/09/02/diginotar-removal-follow-up/