The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto

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!

Timothy C. May, 1988