The cypherpunks, a ragtag group of tech tinkerers, cryptographers, and privacy advocates, were obscure in their 1990s heyday. And it would have remained that way in perpetuity were it not for a certain Satoshi Nakamoto launching a digital currency in 2009 encapsulating their core beliefs. We don’t know if Satoshi was a cypherpunk. But what...Read More
Financial cryptographer. Cypherpunk. Inventor of Ricardian contracts and early utilizer of triple-entry accounting systems, which would later be exemplified in Bitcoin. Ian Grigg may have claimed that Satoshi was a team effort and is now dead, only living on in bitcoiners everywhere, but some seem to think it’s him. In this installment of “the many...Read More
What is the second realm? It’s both an abstract and concrete “place” parallel to here, where temporary autonomous zones (TAZ) provide a chance to escape the burning surveillance spotlight of the state and brutal law enforcement culture, and allow for at least temporary exercises of human rights and freedom. A TAZ may allow for free...Read More
In an age where Google, Facebook and the NSA are known to be harvesting as much as our communications as they can, many people are concerned that online privacy now only exists in the history books. One project trying to address this is the metadata-shredding platform Elixxir, led by cypherpunk innovator David Chaum, which now...Read More