Cypherpunk article in NY

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

Life in Cyberspace - Joshua Quittner
New York Newsday - Page 59
Tuesday, 01 February 1994

CODING UP A BIT OF PRIVACY

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.

This must be how the Founding Fathers looked when they hacked out the 
Constitution :

A roomful of young men, mostly--frazzled hair, eager eyes, wild beards,
arms flailing and fingers jabbing in air, reaching for big ideas.  You
can't help but feel it; urgency tempers their voices.  The earnest men 
plan and argue in this corporate conference room as the last sun rays of
a winter Saturday afternoon fade in through a skylight.

Time is running out for the Cypherpunks.

There is much work to be done before the information highway arrives.
The information highway --- that 500-channel shopping mall/cineplex
championed by cable and telephone companies --- is a noxious concept to
the people in this room.  They are not technophobes or Luddites, these
Cypherpunks,  Instead, they are a collection of clever computer 
programmers, engineers and wire heads from some of the nation's best-known 
Silicon Valley software houses and hardware shops.

This is their central question:  In a future world where all information 
is centralized on a network, where all information is tracked by the bit, 
where every purchase you make and every communication can be monitored by 
corporate America, how does privacy survive?  If you go to the bookstore 
now and buy a book, you can pay in cash.  No one knows your name or what 
you purchased.  "What happens to cash transactions on the information 
highway?" they ask.

The Cypherpunks believe that they can preserve your privacy through good 
cyphers, or codes.  But they must hurry, must get their codes out and 
their networks up and running.

"The whole information highway thing is now part of the public eye," 
explain Eric Hughes, a founder of the Cypherpunk movement.  "If we don't 
change it now, it'll be impossible later."  The Cypherpunks know what 
technology is capable of.  We visit them today because they represent one 
edge of the national debate on the structure of the information highway.  
And as we all know, extreme positions help define the middle.

Many of the Cypherpunks have been heavy Internet users for years and hope 
to preserve the communal spirit of that freewheeling world of 
interconnected computer networks.  They dread the coming commercial 
network of televisions and computers, saying it will displace the 
Internet and destroy many of the freedoms they now enjoy.

So the Cypherpunks, with the kind of zeal they professionally bring to 
marathon, 72-hour sessions hacking computer code, are plotting to keep 
free networks alive.  That's "free" in the sense of unfettered, 
unmonitored, uncensored.

One way they're going about it is by spreading easy-to-use, cheap 
cryptography.  Cryptography is the science of keeping two-way 
communication private.  Computers, it turns out, are revolutionary 
cryptographic tools, able to encode and decode files quickly.  For the 
first time, virtually unbreakable codes are now possible, thanks to 
computers.

The Cypherpunks post cryptographic software on the Internet where anyone 
can access it, and can encode their communications, including electronic 
mail, pictures and video.

The the U.S. government is concerned, as governments always are, about 
the spread of powerful cryptography (terrorists could use it, kidnappers 
could use it, drug dealers could use it, all of them on cellular phones 
that encode conversations).  It currently is pushing its own commercial 
cryptographic standard, through a special chip known as the Clipper.  The 
chip is reviled by Cypherpunks and other civil libertarians because it 
provides a back door that law-enforcement agencies could enter, with the 
proper warrants, for surveillance.

By getting good, unbreakable cryptography out there now, the Cypherpunks 
hope, whatever the government finally decides will be moot.

Software has a wonderful property, the Cypherpunks are fond of saying:  
Once it's created, it can never be destroyed.  It can be copied 
infinitely, from computer to computer, spreading like a secret.  Come 
what may, unbreakable Cypherpunk code, and Cypherpunk networks, will be 
out there forever, they hope.  But just to be safe, the Cypherpunks are 
toying with different network-related plans to create an economy of 
"digicash" --- network money that, like the dollars in your pocket, isn't 
tied to a user's credit cards or other personal identification.  Digicash 
will help pay for Cypherpunk networks and will allow people to purchase 
goods without revealing their identity.

"I'm starting a bank, and it's not going to be a U.S. bank," Hughes 
says.  He standing at the whiteboard now.  A strawberry-blond ponytail 
dangles down his back and he grasps a magic marker in his hand.  "We have 
several long-term strategies, one of which is the elimination of central 
banks."  He tells the assembled crowd what they already know.  Heads 
nod.  Some people take notes.

Hughes is a self-employed programmer in Berkeley.  His hand flies across 
the whiteboard, sketching out a schematic diagram, showing how his bank 
will operate.  The bank will store depositors' money (he's thinking a 
$200 minimum deposit) and disburse payments to anyone --- all over the 
Internet.  It will be based abroad, maybe in Mexico.  A Cypherpunk 
network bank is one way to pay for a network of truly encrypted, private 
communications, you see.

"Is this going to lead the way to portable laptop ATM machines?" someone 
else asks.

"First Bank of Cyberspace!" yells one person.

"First Internet bank!" yells another.

"The Nth National Bank!"

Laughter.  Billy goat beards bob.
There is much work to be done.


*******************************
Net Tips

If you have e-mail access to the Internet, you can subscribe free to the 
Cypherpunks mailing list, which circulates to about 750 people daily.  
Send an e-mail message to:  cypherpunks-request@toad.com with the word "
Subscribe" and your name in body of message.  More information about 
cryptography, as well as cryptographic software, can be obtained over the
Internet by ftp'ing to: ftp.soda.berkeley.edu
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Thanks to Lois for entering this article.
--- WinQwk 2.0b#1165