The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto

The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto 

Timothy C. May 

A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy.
Computer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for
individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a
totally anonymous manner. Two persons may exchange messages, conduct
business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the
True Name, or legal identity, of the other. Interactions over networks
will be untraceable, via extensive re- routing of encrypted packets and
tamper-proof boxes which implement cryptographic protocols with nearly
perfect assurance against any tampering. Reputations will be of central
importance, far more important in dealings than even the credit ratings
of today. These developments will alter completely the nature of
government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic
interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even
alter the nature of trust and reputation.

The technology for this revolution--and it surely will be both a social
and economic revolution--has existed in theory for the past decade.
The methods are based upon public-key encryption, zero-knowledge
interactive proof systems, and various software protocols for
interaction, authentication, and verification. The focus has until now
been on academic conferences in Europe and the U.S., conferences
monitored closely by the National Security Agency. But only recently
have computer networks and personal computers attained sufficient speed
to make the ideas practically realizable. And the next ten years will
bring enough additional speed to make the ideas economically feasible
and essentially unstoppable. High-speed networks, ISDN, tamper-proof
boxes, smart cards, satellites, Ku-band transmitters, multi-MIPS
personal computers, and encryption chips now under development will be
some of the enabling technologies.

The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this
technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by
drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration. Many
of these concerns will be valid; crypto anarchy will allow national
secrets to be trade freely and will allow illicit and stolen materials
to be traded. An anonymous computerized market will even make possible
abhorrent markets for assassinations and extortion. Various criminal and
foreign elements will be active users of CryptoNet. But this will not
halt the spread of crypto anarchy.

Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of
medieval guilds and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic
methods fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government
interference in economic transactions. Combined with emerging
information markets, crypto anarchy will create a liquid market for any
and all material which can be put into words and pictures. And just as a
seemingly minor invention like barbed wire made possible the fencing-off
of vast ranches and farms, thus altering forever the concepts of land
and property rights in the frontier West, so too will the seemingly
minor discovery out of an arcane branch of mathematics come to be the
wire clippers which dismantle the barbed wire around intellectual
property.

Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!