A Declaration of Privacy, Cryptography, Decentralization and Digital Sovereignty
In my illustration above, entitled: “David Against the Digital Leviathans” – I stand between two enormous mechanical giants—one representing government surveillance and the other corporate technological monopoly.
Preamble
The digital world is becoming inseparable from the physical world.
We communicate through computer networks.
We store knowledge in databases.
We establish identities through websites.
We conduct commerce electronically.
We form communities across borders.
We increasingly entrust photographs, correspondence, financial records, professional histories and personal relationships to machines operated by institutions we may never meet.
This transformation creates extraordinary possibilities.
It also creates extraordinary concentrations of power.
The same systems that allow an individual to communicate with the world can allow institutions to observe the individual.
The same databases that create convenience can create permanent records.
The same networks that distribute information can also become mechanisms for censorship.
The same technologies that connect humanity can create unprecedented dependence upon centralized intermediaries.
Technological progress therefore presents us with a choice.
We can build a digital civilization in which individuals increasingly require permission to communicate, transact, publish, participate and possess.
Or we can build one in which technology expands the individual’s ability to act independently.
I choose the second.
On October 10, 2010, I described Cypherpunkism as a broader philosophy of Digital Sovereignty built upon privacy, cryptography, decentralization, open knowledge and individual control.
This manifesto states that philosophy more directly.
Cypherpunkism does not claim to have created the historical Cypherpunk movement. Its intellectual foundations belong to a much older tradition of cryptographers, programmers, privacy advocates, free-software pioneers and builders of peer-to-peer systems.
My purpose is to organize and extend those ideas into a systematic philosophy for a civilization increasingly governed by digital architecture.
This is not a rejection of governments.
It is not a rejection of corporations.
It is not a rejection of technological progress.
It is a declaration that neither government nor corporation should become the unquestioned sovereign of digital existence.
The digital world should remain a place in which the individual possesses meaningful power.
That power must not depend entirely upon promises.
It must increasingly be built into the architecture itself.
I. Privacy Is Sovereignty Over Disclosure
Eric Hughes drew an important distinction between privacy and secrecy in his 1993 A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto. His formulation helped establish one of the central principles of the Cypherpunk tradition: privacy concerns an individual’s ability to determine what is revealed about himself and to whom.
Cypherpunkism begins from that distinction and extends it further.
Privacy is sovereignty over disclosure.
A human being chooses which thoughts to speak.
A person chooses which conversations remain between friends.
A family closes its doors.
A business protects confidential information.
A voter enters a private booth.
A person seals a letter before sending it.
These are not acts of criminality.
They are ordinary expressions of autonomy.
Digital civilization should not abolish this principle merely because computers make observation easier.
When communication becomes electronic, privacy must become electronic.
When identity becomes digital, privacy must extend to digital identity.
When money becomes electronic, privacy must be considered in electronic transactions.
When human activity increasingly produces databases, the individual must retain meaningful control over what those databases contain and how that information is used.
The individual should possess the ability to determine what information is revealed, to whom it is revealed and under what circumstances.
Privacy must not become a privilege available only to governments, banks, corporations and technically sophisticated individuals.
Privacy should be available to ordinary people.
II. Cryptography Is Applied Freedom
Rights written on paper are important.
But rights that exist only because an authority promises not to violate them are vulnerable.
Authorities change.
Governments change.
Companies change.
Policies change.
Employees change.
Circumstances change.
Cryptography introduces a different form of protection.
It allows mathematics to create boundaries.
A confidential communication does not remain confidential merely because an observer agrees not to read it.
Encryption can make that communication technically inaccessible to an unauthorized observer who does not possess the appropriate key.
This is one of the most significant political implications of cryptography.
It allows some freedoms to become properties of systems.
Eric Hughes summarized the practical ethos of the Cypherpunk movement in four words:
“Cypherpunks write code.”
This principle remains essential.
If we want private communication, we should build private communication.
If we want secure digital identity, we should build secure identity systems.
If we want electronic transactions that reveal no more information than necessary, we should design them accordingly.
If we want censorship-resistant publication, we should investigate architectures that make censorship difficult.
If we want individuals to possess direct authority over digital assets, we should develop cryptographic systems capable of giving them that authority.
Cryptography is applied freedom.
Strong cryptography should be available to ordinary citizens.
The ability to secure information should not belong exclusively to states, militaries, banks and large corporations.
The individual should also possess keys.
III. The Individual Must Control the Keys
The digital world is teaching us a new meaning of possession.
In the physical world, possession is visible.
A person holds an object.
A document exists in a drawer.
Cash exists in a wallet.
A key opens a door.
Digital possession is less obvious.
A photograph stored on someone else’s server may appear to belong to you while remaining under another organization’s technical control.
An account may appear to be yours while the platform retains the ability to disable it.
A digital identity may appear personal while its authoritative record belongs to an institution.
Electronic money traditionally requires an intermediary to maintain the ledger.
Cryptographic keys create another possibility.
The person controlling the key can possess a form of direct technological authority.
This principle is still young.
Its consequences are not yet fully understood.
But it may become fundamental to digital sovereignty.
Where practical, the individual should control the keys governing his digital life.
Control of the key should mean meaningful control over access.
Systems should not unnecessarily require individuals to surrender ultimate authority merely for the convenience of participation.
IV. Decentralization Is a Check on Power
Centralization can be useful.
It can make systems efficient.
It can make decisions fast.
It can make administration simple.
But every centralized system creates a question:
Who controls the center?
If one organization controls the only database, that organization controls the record.
If one company controls the only platform, that company controls participation.
If one institution controls the only payment mechanism, that institution controls transactions.
If one server is required for a network to function, whoever controls that server possesses extraordinary influence over the network.
Political systems have long recognized the danger of concentrated authority.
Constitutions divide powers.
Institutions create checks and balances.
Competitive markets attempt to prevent monopolistic control.
Digital architecture should sometimes follow the same principle.
Peer-to-peer systems, distributed networks and open protocols can make it more difficult for a single actor to control everyone else.
Decentralization does not guarantee freedom.
A decentralized system can fail.
A decentralized system can be inefficient.
It can be badly designed.
It can still produce concentrations of influence.
But decentralization can remove unnecessary single points of authority.
Decentralization is a technological check on concentrated power.
Where the consequences of control are sufficiently important, no single entity should possess more authority than is necessary.
V. Open Protocols Preserve Exit
Freedom requires alternatives.
A person who is technically free to leave a system but practically incapable of doing so is not truly independent of that system.
Digital platforms can create powerful forms of dependency.
A person’s contacts may exist inside one network.
His photographs may exist in one proprietary service.
His correspondence may be stored by one provider.
His professional reputation may depend upon one platform.
The more difficult it becomes to leave, the more authority the platform acquires.
Cypherpunkism therefore values open standards and interoperability.
A protocol that many independent developers can implement is fundamentally different from a closed system controlled entirely by one company.
An open protocol makes competition possible.
It creates alternatives.
It allows new implementations to emerge.
It provides a form of exit.
Digital freedom requires the possibility of technological exit.
Where practical, systems should permit individuals to move information, change providers and continue participating without surrendering everything they have built.
The user should not become a permanent tenant of a digital landlord.
VI. Open Knowledge Is Part of Sovereignty
A society cannot become technologically sovereign if its citizens are prohibited from understanding technology.
The digital world is becoming increasingly complex.
Cryptography is complex.
Computer networks are complex.
Electronic money is complex.
Software is complex.
Complexity creates dependency.
If only a small technical class understands the systems governing everyone else, then everyone else must trust that class.
Education therefore becomes a component of sovereignty.
Knowledge must circulate.
Research must be preserved.
Technical documents must be accessible.
People must be able to study the systems shaping their lives.
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 emerging decentralized digital infrastructure.
The purpose is not merely academic.
It is philosophical.
Knowledge reduces dependency.
An informed individual can question.
An informed individual can verify.
An informed individual can build.
An informed individual can reject bad systems and develop alternatives.
Open knowledge strengthens digital sovereignty.
The technologies that will define the future should not be understood only by governments, corporations and elite institutions.
VII. Code Is Political Architecture
Lawrence Lessig has argued that the architecture of cyberspace — its software, hardware and protocols — can regulate behavior by determining what people are technologically able or unable to do.
Cypherpunkism takes this insight in a particular direction:
If code distributes power, then the design of code becomes a question of individual sovereignty.
A constitution establishes rules.
So does software.
A law determines what an institution may do.
Code determines what a machine can do.
Software can require identification.
Software can permit anonymity.
Software can record every action.
Software can minimize records.
Software can allow a central administrator to remove a user.
Software can make removal difficult.
Software can require permission.
Software can permit peer-to-peer interaction.
The political consequences of software are therefore unavoidable.
This does not mean every programmer is a legislator.
It means that technological design choices distribute power.
A system that requires a central authority makes one political assumption.
A system that allows individuals to interact directly makes another.
A system that permanently records identity makes one assumption.
A system that permits selective disclosure makes another.
Code is political architecture.
Technology should not be judged only by whether it works.
It must also be judged by the distribution of power it creates.
VIII. Freedom Must Be Built
Political activism often asks authorities to change.
Sometimes this is necessary.
Bad laws should be changed.
Abusive institutions should be challenged.
Governments should be held accountable.
Corporations should be criticized when their practices violate legitimate rights.
But Cypherpunkism adds another strategy:
Build an alternative.
If centralized communication creates unnecessary surveillance, build encrypted communication.
If publishing depends upon one gatekeeper, investigate distributed publication.
If electronic payments require unnecessary intermediaries, build peer-to-peer alternatives.
If proprietary systems create dependency, create open implementations.
If knowledge is locked away, publish it.
Not every experiment will succeed.
Failure is inevitable.
But an imperfect alternative can prove that another architecture is possible.
A working prototype can be more powerful than a thousand complaints.
Freedom must not merely be requested. Freedom must also be engineered.
IX. Bitcoin Is an Experiment in Digital Sovereignty
In 2008, an individual using the name Satoshi Nakamoto published a proposal entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Bitcoin attempts to create electronic money without requiring a central server to maintain the authoritative ledger.
Its network instead relies upon cryptography and distributed participants.
The system remains highly experimental.
Its future is uncertain.
It may fail.
It may be replaced.
It may remain a small technical curiosity.
But its philosophical significance deserves attention.
For decades, cryptographers and Cypherpunks have discussed digital cash and cryptographic methods for reducing dependence upon intermediaries.
Bitcoin attempts to transform those discussions into operating software.
Earlier this year, bitcoins were exchanged for pizzas in one of the earliest widely documented examples of the currency being used to obtain an ordinary physical product.
The price of that transaction is not the important point.
The architecture is.
Bitcoin asks:
Can digital value exist without requiring a centralized monetary server?
That is a Cypherpunk question.
But Bitcoin is not Cypherpunkism.
Cypherpunkism is wider.
Money is only one domain.
The same philosophy applies to communication.
Identity.
Privacy.
Information.
Knowledge.
Publication.
Networks.
Digital possessions.
Bitcoin may become one implementation of Digital Sovereignty.
It is not the entire philosophy.
X. Neither Government Nor Corporation Should Become Digital Sovereign
Much discussion about privacy focuses upon government.
This is understandable.
Governments possess police forces, intelligence services, regulatory powers and militaries.
An unchecked state is dangerous.
But technological civilization has created another form of concentrated authority.
Private corporations now control networks used by hundreds of millions of people.
They operate search engines.
Social networks.
Email systems.
Cloud storage.
Payment infrastructure.
Mapping services.
Advertising networks.
And vast databases containing detailed information about human behavior.
Corporate power is not identical to state power.
But it should not therefore be ignored.
The correct Cypherpunkist position is not:
Government bad, corporation good.
Nor is it:
Corporation bad, government good.
The principle is:
Concentrated technological power must always be questioned.
The state must not become the unquestioned sovereign of digital life.
Neither should the corporation.
The objective is not to replace one master with another.
The objective is to preserve meaningful space for the individual.
XI. Privacy Does Not Abolish Responsibility
Privacy technologies will be abused.
So will computers.
So will telephones.
So will automobiles.
So will money.
Every technology that gives ordinary people power also gives some bad actors power.
This creates genuine problems.
Society has legitimate interests in preventing violence, theft and fraud.
Cypherpunkism must not pretend otherwise.
But the existence of criminals does not justify treating every citizen as a suspect.
The existence of anonymous speech does not justify eliminating anonymous speech.
The existence of encrypted criminal communication does not justify denying encryption to everyone.
The existence of financial crime does not justify permanent visibility into every financial action of every person.
Freedom always creates risk.
The alternative — total control — creates another and potentially greater risk.
Privacy and responsibility must coexist.
Digital civilization must develop methods of accountability that do not require universal surveillance.
XII. Identity Must Not Become a Permanent Tracking Number
Digital systems increasingly encourage persistent identity.
One account.
One profile.
One history.
One record connecting activities across services.
This may be convenient.
It can also become dangerous.
Human beings behave differently in different contexts.
A person may speak differently with family than with colleagues.
He may participate in political discussion under one identity and professional discussion under another.
He may wish to explore an idea without permanently attaching that exploration to his legal name.
Pseudonymity has always existed in intellectual and political life.
Writers use pen names.
Activists use pseudonyms.
Whistleblowers protect their identities.
Digital civilization should preserve similar possibilities.
Identity should be contextual where possible.
A person should not be required to expose his complete legal identity merely to participate in every digital interaction.
Selective disclosure should be preferred to universal identification.
XIII. Surveillance Changes the Individual
Surveillance is not passive.
Being watched changes behavior.
A person who knows that every statement may be permanently recorded becomes more cautious.
A person who knows that every association may be analyzed may become less willing to associate.
A person who believes every search may become part of a permanent dossier may eventually avoid certain questions.
This creates a subtle form of control.
Nobody needs to explicitly censor the individual.
The individual begins censoring himself.
A society can therefore lose freedom without ever formally abolishing it.
A free society requires spaces in which human beings are not continuously observed.
Digital architecture should preserve those spaces.
XIV. Convenience Is Not Sovereignty
Centralized systems often win because they are convenient.
One password.
One company.
One database.
One account.
One authority.
Convenience has enormous value.
But convenience can gradually become dependency.
Dependency can become control.
The history of digital technology may eventually be defined by this trade-off.
People surrender information for convenience.
They surrender control for convenience.
They surrender ownership for convenience.
They surrender interoperability for convenience.
Each individual decision appears harmless.
Together they can produce an architecture in which the individual has little meaningful authority left.
Cypherpunkism therefore does not reject convenience.
It asks what convenience costs.
Convenience should serve sovereignty, not replace it.
XV. The Right to Build Must Be Defended
A philosophy of technological freedom requires people who are allowed to create technology.
Cryptographic software should not be treated as though mathematics itself were contraband.
Privacy-enhancing tools should be legitimate objects of research.
Peer-to-peer protocols should be open to experimentation.
Electronic money should be investigated.
Anonymous communication should be studied.
Open-source alternatives should be developed.
Society may regulate particular harmful acts.
But it should be extremely cautious about criminalizing general-purpose technologies merely because those technologies reduce institutional control.
The freedom to write and distribute code is essential to digital liberty.
Cypherpunks write code.
Cypherpunkists defend the world in which they are free to do so.
XVI. Digital Sovereignty Belongs to the Individual
The principles of this manifesto converge upon one idea:
Digital Sovereignty.
Digital Sovereignty does not mean that an individual exists without society.
It does not mean governments have no legitimate authority.
It does not mean contracts disappear.
It does not mean corporations should cease to exist.
It does not mean every network must be decentralized.
Sovereignty means that the individual retains a meaningful sphere of authority within technological civilization.
The individual should retain meaningful control over:
- private information;
- communications;
- cryptographic keys;
- digital identity;
- access to knowledge;
- the ability to publish;
- the ability to transact;
- the ability to change providers;
- and participation in technological systems without surrendering unnecessary power to intermediaries.
Digital sovereignty is not absolute independence.
It is independence sufficient to prevent participation from becoming submission.
Digital sovereignty belongs to the individual.
XVII. The Cypherpunkist
The Cypherpunk is historically associated with cryptography, privacy-enhancing technology and building tools capable of protecting individual freedom.
The Cypherpunkist embraces the broader philosophy.
The Cypherpunkist may be a programmer.
But he need not be.
He may be a cryptographer.
An entrepreneur.
An academic.
A writer.
An investor.
An activist.
An engineer.
Or simply an individual who believes technological civilization should remain compatible with human freedom.
The Cypherpunkist understands that:
- privacy is sovereignty over disclosure;
- cryptography is applied freedom;
- decentralization is a technological check on concentrated power;
- open knowledge reduces dependency;
- control of keys creates technological authority;
- code is political architecture;
- and freedom must be built into systems rather than merely promised by institutions.
My illustration “David Against the Digital Leviathans” work-in-progress- despite the giants’ scale, I hold a small but intensely luminous cryptographic key capable of disabling their systems.
The Cypherpunkist Declaration
I therefore declare:
I have the right to establish boundaries around my digital life.
I have the right to use strong cryptography.
I have the right to communicate privately.
I have the right to possess and control my own cryptographic keys.
I have the right to understand the technologies upon which I depend.
I have the right to build alternatives to centralized systems.
I have the right to participate in open networks.
I have the right to use pseudonyms where identification is unnecessary.
I have the right to resist unnecessary surveillance.
I have the right to question technological monopolies.
I have the right to seek decentralized alternatives where concentrated power threatens freedom.
I have the right to technological exit.
I have the right to experiment with new forms of communication, digital ownership and electronic exchange.
I have the right to demand that technology disclose only what is necessary rather than everything that is possible.
I have the right to remain an individual in a world increasingly constructed from databases.
And with these rights comes responsibility.
I must understand the systems I use.
I must protect my keys.
I must defend the privacy of others as I defend my own.
I must distinguish freedom from irresponsibility.
I must contribute knowledge where I can.
I must build rather than merely complain.
I must remain skeptical of power even when that power claims to act for my convenience.
I must remember that technology is a tool.
The human being is its purpose.
A Civilization Written in Code
The great political struggles of previous centuries concerned territory, law, property, religion, speech and government.
Those struggles will continue.
But another has begun.
The struggle over digital architecture.
Who controls the database?
Who controls the network?
Who possesses the key?
Who determines identity?
Who can observe?
Who can censor?
Who can transact?
Who can build?
Who can leave?
These may appear to be questions for programmers.
They are becoming questions for civilization.
We are writing the architecture of the future now.
Some of that architecture will be centralized.
Some decentralized.
Some private.
Some public.
Some open.
Some closed.
Some liberating.
Some controlling.
The choices we make in this generation may determine whether technology becomes one of the greatest instruments of individual empowerment ever created — or one of the most comprehensive infrastructures of surveillance humanity has ever known.
The answer will not be determined by philosophy alone.
It will be determined by what we build.
Cypherpunkism therefore does not end with a declaration.
It begins with one.
Protect privacy.
Use cryptography.
Control the keys.
Decentralize unnecessary power.
Open knowledge.
Build alternatives.
Preserve digital sovereignty.
The individual must remain sovereign in the digital age.
Foundational Sources and Influences
Cypherpunkism develops from and acknowledges a broader intellectual tradition in cryptography, privacy, free software, decentralized networks and digital political philosophy. The following works were foundational influences on the ideas addressed in this manifesto.
- United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12. 1948.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
- 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.
- Stallman, Richard. The GNU Manifesto. 1985.
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
- May, Timothy C. The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto. Originally written in 1988 and circulated electronically to the Cypherpunks mailing list on November 22, 1992.
- Hughes, Eric. A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto. March 9, 1993.
- 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
- Nakamoto, Satoshi. “Bitcoin v0.1 Released.” Cryptography Mailing List, January 2009.
https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/16/
- Hanyecz, Laszlo. “Pizza for bitcoins?” BitcoinTalk, May 2010.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0