“Cryptography is the ultimate form of nonviolent direct action. While nuclear weapons states can exert unlimited violence over even millions of individuals, strong cryptography means that a state, even by exercising unlimited violence, cannot violate the intent of individuals to keep secrets from them. Strong cryptography can resist an unlimited application of violence. No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem.”
—Julian Assange, A Call to Cryptic Arms “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet”
I just started reading this book, which includes discussions with Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn & Jérémie Zimmerman. You can buy a copy here!
For more on cypherpunks, WikiLeaks & internet freedom, watch this episode of The Julian Assange Show Part 1 & Part 2.
Cypherpunk Rising: WikiLeaks, Encryption, And The Coming Surveillance Dystopia
Klint Finley
R.U. Sirius wrote:
If, in 1995, some cypherpunks had published a book about the upcoming “postmodern surveillance dystopia,” most commentators would have shrugged it off as just a wee bit paranoid and ushered them into the Philip K. Dick Reading Room. Now, it is more likely that people will shrug and say, “that ship has already sailed.”
Full Story: The Verge: Cypherpunk rising: WikiLeaks, encryption, and the coming surveillance dystopia
“The new world of the internet, abstracted from the old world of brute atoms, longed for independence. But states and their friends moved to control our new world -- by controlling its physical underpinnings. The state, like an army around an oil well, or a customs agent extracting bribes at the border, would soon learn to leverage its control of physical space to gain control over our platonic realm. It would prevent the independence we had dreamed of, and then, squatting on fiber optic lines and around satellite ground stations, it would go on to mass intercept the information flow of our new world -- its very essence even as every human, economic, and political relationship embraced it. The state would leech into the veins and arteries of our new societies, gobbling up every relationship expressed or communicated, every web page read, every message sent and every thought googled, and then store this knowledge, billions of interceptions a day, undreamed of power, in vast top secret warehouses, forever. It would go on to mine and mine again this treasure, the collective private intellectual output of humanity, with ever more sophisticated search and pattern finding algorithms, enriching the treasure and maximizing the power imbalance between interceptors and the world of interceptees. And then the state would reflect what it had learned back into the physical world, to start wars, to target drones, to manipulate UN committees and trade deals, and to do favors for its vast connected network of industries, insiders and cronies.”
—Julian Assange, A Call to Cryptographic Arms
The Ethics of Hacking
Written by Dissident (dateunknown):
I went up to a college this summer to look around, see if it was where I wanted to go and whatnot. The guide asked me about my interests, and when I said computers, he started asking me about what systems I had, etc. And when all that was done, the first thing he asked me was “Are you a hacker?”
Well, that question has been bugging me ever since. Just what exactly is a hacker? A REAL hacker? For those who don’t know better, the news media (and even comic strips) have blown it way out of proportion… A hacker, by wrong-definition, can be anything from a computer-user to someone who destroys everything they can get their evil terminals into. And the idiotic schmucks of the world who get a Commodore Vic-20 and a 300 baud modem (heh, and a tape drive!) for Christmas haven’t helped hackers’ reputations a damn bit. They somehow get access to a really cool system and find some files on hacking… Or maybe a friendly but not-too-cautious hacker helps the loser out, gives him a few numbers, etc. The schmuck gets onto a system somewhere, lucks up and gets in to some really cool information or programs, and deletes them. Or some of the more greedy ones capture it, delete it, and try to sell it to Libya or something. Who gets the blame?
The true hackers…that’s who. So what is a true hacker? Firstly, some people may not think I am entirely qualified to say, mainly because I don’t consider myself a hacker yet. I’m still learning the ropes about it, but I think I have a pretty damn good idea of what a true hacker is. If I’m wrong, let one correct me…
True hackers are intelligent, they have to be. Either they do really great in school because they have nothing better to do, or they don’t do so good because school is terribly boring. And the ones who are bored aren’t that way because they don’t give a shit about learning anything. A true hacker wants to know everything. They’re bored because schools teach the same dull things over and over and over, nothing new, nothing challenging. True hackers are curious and patient. If you aren’t, how can you work so very hard hacking away at a single system for even one small PEEK at what may be on it? A true hacker DOESN’T get into the system to kill everything or to sell what he gets to someone else. True hackers want to learn, or want to satisfy their curiosity, that’s why they get into the system. To search around inside of a place they’ve never been, to explore all the little nooks and crannies of a world so unlike the boring cess-pool we live in. Why destroy something and take away the pleasure you had from someone else? Why bring down the whole world on the few true hackers who aren’t cruising the phone lines with malicious intent? True hackers are disgusted at the way things are in this world. All the wonderful technology of the world costs three arms and four legs to get these days. It costs a fortune to call up a board in an adjoining state! So why pay for it? To borrow something from a file I will name later, why pay for what could be “dirt cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons”? Why be forced, due to lack of the hellacious cash flow it would require to call all the great places, to stay around a bunch of schmuck losers in your home town? Calling out and entering a system you’ve never seen before are two of the most exhilarating experiences known to man, but it is a pleasure that could not be enjoyed were it not for the ability to phreak…
True hackers are quiet. I don’t mean they talk at about .5 dB, I mean they keep their mouths shut and don’t brag. The number one killer of those the media would have us call hackers is bragging. You tell a friend, or you run your mouth on a board, and sooner or later people in power will find out what you did, who you are, and you’re gone…I honestly don’t know what purpose this file will serve, maybe someone somewhere will read it, and know the truth about hackers. Not the lies that the ignorant spread. To the true hackers out there, I hope I am portraying what you are in this file… If I am not, then I at least am saying what I think a true hacker should be. And to those wanna-be’s out there who like the label of “HACKER” being tacked onto them, grow up, would ya?
Oh yeah, the file I quoted from… It has been done (at least) two times. “The Hacker’s Manifesto” or “Conscience of a Hacker” are the two names I’ve seen it given. (A file by itself, and part of an issue of Phrack) Either way, it was written by The Mentor, and it is absolutely the best thing ever written on the subject of hackers. Read it, it could change your life.
Spread it around, but don’t change anything please…
