Cypherpunk are a group of people who engage in digital activism focusing on protecting the privacy and security of digital users using the best that crypto can offer.
Un cypherpunk is an activist who defends the idea of using cryptography powerful and the best of technology to protect the privacy of individuals. The word cypherpunk is one of the most viewed words in the crypto world since the 80's. These activists played a decisive role for the evolution of cryptographic technology, used today everywhere, and the defense of our privacy in what we know today as the Internet.
The word cypherpunk was first coined by the well-known hacker jude milhon in 1992. . For this he joined "cypher" (encryption) and "punk" (rebel). Simply put, cypherpunk is "encryption rebels." In addition, the word has a previously known drift, that of cyberpunk. This word is used to define a futuristic, science fiction and dystopia literary genre, where technology is central to the plot.
But what were your beginnings? Who are they? What were your greatest achievements? And more importantly, what are they doing in the world today? Well, all this and much more we will see below.
Start of the cypherpunk movement
The cypherpunk movement started as soon as computing began to demonstrate its potential to transform the security of public information using crypto in 1970. Back then, people interested in crypto wanted to take such technology into spaces beyond purely military use. A situation that seemed necessary due to the future prospects of a digital world interconnected thanks to computers. And even more knowing that in this network all our data would be stored and within reach from anywhere in the world.
The Internet was not designed to be secure. It was designed not to fail, but not to be safe. One of the first figures to boost security was Ralph Merkle. Merkle who while still a student, was able to design the bases of various current cryptographic systems. In fact, Merkle is recognized as the creator of the first functional system of asymmetric cryptography. A fact that has been forgotten for many, because their work was taken as a joke.
However, the joint work of Ralph Merkle, Martin Hellman and Whitfield Diffie, gave rise to the first asymmetric cryptographic systems available to the public. While DES (Data Encryption Standard) it was its counterpart in symmetric cryptography, made public by the American government.
It is from this moment on that the world of cryptography would begin to change the world. And the moment, in which the cypherpunk begin to have a great weight in their development.
The 80's, cypherpunks start to appear
Certainly the development of asymmetric and symmetric cryptography during the 70's were important. But many specialists saw this progress as insufficient. On the one hand, DES was seen as insufficient for the number of security applications that lay ahead. This is in addition to suspicions that the standard was intentionally weakened to allow espionage by the United States.
On the side of asymmetric cryptographic systems, the low computational power and its complexity makes it difficult to implement these developments. But that did not stop those interested in developing these systems. With ARPANET growing rapidly and the development of TCP / IP, the 80's would be the beginning of the great world information network. At the prospects of this development, brilliant minds like those of David Chaum, Shafi goldwasser o Silvio Micali, They began to focus on the crypto challenges of the future.
Of all of them, David Chaum is the most prolific and "rebellious" of them all. Chaum was focused on taking crypto technology to its maximum. All in order to protect the privacy of people. It was a fight between people and governments that want to control everything. A fight where the tool for battle was advanced technology and crypto. That was how Chaum created highly secure crypto systems like blind signatures, group signatures, crypto credentials, and the first example of cryptographically secure digital money.
All this would transform David Chaum into the first person who could be defined as a cypherpunk. A fact that continues to impact our lives today and that would open the doors of a movement for the right to privacy around the world.
Cypherpunks mailing list is born
By the beginning of the 90's, what we know today as the Internet is already a reality. The network of networks worldwide It was operational, although limited in size compared to today. Yet there it was, and it allowed thousands of people to share information from anywhere in the world without being physically present.
Back then, mailing lists were widely used as spaces to meet and discuss on different topics. From these lists, the Cypherpunks mailing list, created in 1992, was somewhat special. In it personalities like Adam Back, Jude Milhon, David Chaum, Eric Hughes, Timothy C May, John gilmore, Fen Labalme, Lance Cottrell, nick szabo, Richard Stallman, Romana Machado, Ron Rivest, Tatu Ylönen, Tim Berners-Lee, and Ulf Moller came to life.
From 1992 to the present day, the Cypherpunk list has been the epicenter of many crypto projects in the world. From her projects as important as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) or the OpenPrivacy.
But in addition to this, the Cypherpunks list was the birthplace of "The cryptanarchist manifesto" y "The Cyphernomicon". Not to mention technological advances that would lead us to the creation of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, such as the case of HashCash de AdamBack.
Main achievements of cypherpunk in its history
As we have previously mentioned, cypherpunks seek to do their best to create tools that help us fight for our privacy. But what have these tools been? And more importantly, what impact have they had on our lives and our privacy? Well, we will examine some of these advances:
Internet
The network of networks is in part an achievement of the work done by cypherpunks. In fact, Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Internet was a well-known cypherpunk. Throughout his life, Berners-Lee has promoted the idea of open government data worldwide and the fight for rights such as net neutrality, privacy and openness of the Web.
SSL encryption for web servers
In the early Internet, connections to servers were made without any encryption. This meant that every connection could be monitored and the content of the connection completely reviewed. This clearly undermines the security and privacy of people on the Internet. The solution was provided by Ben Laurie, a well-known cypherpunk when creating apache ssl in 1998.
Secure remote access
One of the most common tasks on the Internet is to remotely access resources that are online from anywhere in the world. Protocols like FTP and Telnet allow this from the beginning of the Internet, but both were insecure. Everything changed when Tatu Ylönen designed the SSH protocol. This would be the remote connection protocol par excellence due to the high security it provides. A fact that is still being fulfilled today as it is still widely used.
Organizations for the defense of rights
The creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, responds to the work of Mitch Kapor, John gilmore y John perry barlow. The three were known cypherpunks and marked a before and after in organizations in defense of digital rights.
Another body in this regard was the one started by Richard Stallman, the Free Software Foundation. A foundation with the vision of keeping the source code of the programs free to be seen and modified by anyone. A movement that has given rise to projects like GNU / Linux and Android from Google.
Advances in cryptography and computer technology
Many of the advances in crypto were thanks to the work of cypherpunks. A good example is David Chaum and its blind signatures, as well as its version of digital money. To this is added the work of Shafi goldwasser and distributed and error resistant systems. But we can also count works that seek to strengthen and evolve computing to make it more secure and efficient at all times.
At this point, the impact that cypherpunks have had on the world is anything but small. The various personalities behind the movement continue to drive positive change in which we all benefit. And despite the adversities, the movement continues to grow and strengthen, understanding that those who can protect the privacy of people are not governments, but the same people with the power to change how things are done. Those are the cypherpunks. After all "Cypherpunks write code", just as Eric Hughes said.
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