THE  CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
   1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
   See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
   use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
   name on my words.

 4.2.1. Main Points
 4.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
  - Crypto Anarchy is the logical outgrowth of strong crypto.
 4.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
  - Vernor Vinge's "True Names"
  - David Friedman's "Machinery of Freedom"
 4.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
  - Most of the list members are libertarians, or leaning in
     that direction, so the bias toward this is apparent.
  - (If there's a coherent _non_-libertarian ideology, that's
     also consistent with supporting strong crypto, I'm not sure
     it's been presented.)

 4.3.1. This is perhaps a controversial area. So why include it? The
   main reason is to provide some grounding for the later
   comments on many issues.
 4.3.2. People should not expect a uniform ideology on this list.
   Some of us are anarcho-capitalist radicals (or "crypto
   anarchists"), others of us are staid Republicans, and still
   others are Wobblies and other assored leftists.

 4.4.1. This is the message each new subscriber to the Cypherpunks
   lists gets, by Eric Hughes:
 4.4.2. "Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there
   were more of it.  Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want
   privacy must create it for themselves and not expect
   governments, corporations, or other large, faceless
   organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence.
   Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own
   privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors,
   and couriers.  Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other
   people from speaking about their experiences or their
   opinions.
   
   "The most important means to the defense of privacy is
   encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy.
   But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too
   much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people
   desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it.
   
   "Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography.
   Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement
   it, and to make more of it.  Cypherpunks know that
   cryptographic protocols make social structures.  Cypherpunks
   know how to attack a system and how to defend it.
   Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good
   cryptosystems.
   
   "Cypherpunks love to practice.  They love to play with public
   key cryptography.  They love to play with anonymous and
   pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery.  They love to play
   with DC-nets.  They love to play with secure communications
   of all kinds.
   
   "Cypherpunks write code.  They know that someone has to write
   code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're
   going to write it.  Cypherpunks publish their code so that
   their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it.
   Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and
   are patient with incremental progress.
   
   "Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they
   write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed.
   Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut
   down.
   
   "Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy." [Eric
   Hughes, 1993-07-21 version]

 4.5.1. "Cypherpunks write code" is almost our mantra.
 4.5.2. This has come to be a defining statement. Eric Hughes used it
   to mean that Cypherpunks place more importance in actually
   changing things, in actually getting working code out, than
   in merely talking about how things "ought" to be.
  - Eric Hughes statement needed here:
  - Karl Kleinpaste, author of one of the early anonymous
     posting services (Charcoal) said this about some proposal
     made: "If you've got serious plans for how to implement
     such a thing, please implement it at least skeletally and
     deploy it.  Proof by example, watching such a system in
     action, is far better than pontification about it."
     [Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu, news.admin.policy, 1994-06-30]
 4.5.3. "The admonition, "Cypherpunks write code," should be taken
   metaphorically.  I think "to write code" means to take
   unilateral effective action as an individual.  That may mean
   writing actual code, but it could also mean dumpster diving
   at Mycrotronx and anonymously releasing the recovered
   information.  It could also mean creating an offshore digital
   bank.  Don't get too literal on us here.  What is important
   is that Cypherpunks take personal responsibility for
   empowering themselves against threats to privacy." [Sandy
   Sandfort, 1994-07-08]
 4.5.4. A Cypherpunks outlook: taking the abstractions of academic
   conferences and making them concrete
  - One thing Eric Hughes and I discussed at length (for 3 days
     of nearly nonstop talk, in May, 1992) was the glacial rate
     of progress in converting the cryptographic primitive
     operations of the academic crypto conferences into actual,
     workable code. The basic RSA algorithm was by then barely
     available, more than 15 years after invention. (This was
     before PGP 2.0, and PGP 1.0 was barely available and was
     disappointing, with RSA Data Security's various products in
     limited niches.) All the neat stuff on digital cash, DC-
     Nets, bit commitment, olivioius transfer, digital mixes,
     and so on, was completely absent, in terms of avialable
     code or "crypto ICs" (to borrow Brad Cox's phrase). If it
     took 10-15 years for RSA to really appear in the real
     world, how long would it take some of the exciting stuff to
     get out?
  - We thought it would be a neat idea to find ways to reify
     these things, to get actual running code. As it happened,
     PGP 2.0 appeared the week of our very first meeting, and
     both the Kleinpaste/Julf and Cypherpunks remailers were
     quick, if incomplete, implementations of David Chaum's 1981
     "digital mixes." (Right on schedule, 11 years later.)
  - Sadly, most of the abstractions of cryptology remain
     residents of academic space, with no (available)
     implementations in the real world. (To be sure, I suspect
     many people have cobbled-together versions of many of these
     things, in C code, whatever. But their work is more like
     building sand castles, to be lost when they graduate or
     move on to other projects. This is of course not a problem
     unique to cryptology.)
  - Today, various toolkits and libraries are under
     development. Henry Strickland (Strick) is working on a
     toolkit based on John Ousterhout's "TCL" system (for Unix),
     and of course RSADSI provides RSAREF. Pr0duct Cypher has
     "PGP Tools." Other projects are underway. (My own longterm
     interest here is in building objects which act as the
     cryptography papers would have them act...building block
     objects. For this, I'm looking at Smalltalk of some
     flavor.)
  - It is still the case that most of the modern crypto papers
     discuss theoretical abstractions that are _not even close_
     to being implemented as reusable, robust objects or
     routines. Closing the gap between theoretical papers and
     practical realization is a major Cypherpunk emphasis.
 4.5.5. Prototypes, even if fatally flawed, allow for evolutionary
   learning and improvement. Think of it as engineering in
   action.

 4.6.1. (more needed here....)
 4.6.2. As Sandy Sandfort notes, "The real point of Cypherpunks is
   that it's better to use strong crypto than weak crypto or no
   crypto at all.  Our use of crypto doesn't have to be totally
   bullet proof to be of value.  Let *them* worry about the
   technicalities while we make sure they have to work harder
   and pay more for our encrypted info than they would if it
   were in plaintext." [S.S. 1994-07-01]

 4.7.1. Speech
  - "Public speech is not a series of public speeches, but
     rather one's own
     words spoken openly and without shame....I desire a society
     where all may speak freely about whatever topic they will.
     I desire that all people might be able to choose to whom
     they wish to speak and to whom they do not wish to speak.
     I desire a society where all people may have an assurance
     that their words are directed only at those to whom they
     wish.  Therefore I oppose all efforts by governments to
     eavesdrop and to become unwanted listeners." [Eric Hughes,
     1994-02-22]
  - "The government has no right to restrict my use of
     cryptography in any way.  They may not forbid me to use
     whatever ciphers I may like, nor may they require me to use
     any that I do not like." [Eric Hughes, 1993-06-01]
 4.7.2. "Should there be _any_ limits whatsoever on a person's use of
   cryptography?"
  - No. Using the mathematics of cryptography is merely the
     manipulation of symbols. No crime is involved, ipso facto.
  - Also, as Eric Hughes has pointed out, this is another of
     those questions where the normative "should" or "shouldn't"
     invokes "the policeman inside." A better way to look at is
     to see what steps people can take to make any question of
     "should" this be allowed just moot.
  - The "crimes" are actual physical acts like murder and
     kidnapping. The fact that crypto may be used by plotters
     and planners, thus making detection more difficult, is in
     no way different from the possibility that plotters may
     speak in an unusual language to each other (ciphers), or
     meet in a private home (security), or speak in a soft voice
     when in public (steganography). None of these things should
     be illegal, and *none of them would be enforceable* except
     in the most rigid of police states (and probably not even
     there).
  - "Crypto is thoughtcrime" is the effect of restricting
     cryptography use.
 4.7.3. Democracy and censorship
  - Does a community have the right to decide what newsgroups
     or magazines it allows in its community? Does a nation have
     the right to do the same? (Tennessee, Iraq, Iran, France.
     Utah?)
  - This is what bypasses with crypto are all about: taking
     these majoritarian morality decisions out of the hands of
     the bluenoses. Direct action to secure freedoms.

 4.8.1. "Is there an agenda here beyond just ensuring privacy?"
  - Definitely! I think I can safely say that for nearly all
     political persuasions on the Cypherpunks list. Left, right,
     libertarian, or anarchist, there's much more to to strong
     crypto than simple privacy. Privacy qua privacy is fairly
     uninteresting. If all one wants is privacy, one can simply
     keep to one's self, stay off high-visibility lists like
     this, and generally stay out of trouble.
  - Many of us see strong crypto as the key enabling technology
     for a new economic and social system, a system which will
     develop as cyberspace becomes more important. A system
     which dispenses with national boundaries, which is based on
     voluntary (even if anonymous) free trade. At issue is the
     end of governments as we know them today. (Look at
     interactions on the Net--on this list, for example--and
     you'll see many so-called nationalities, voluntary
     interaction, and the almost complete absence of any "laws."
     Aside from their being almost no rules per se for the
     Cypherpunks list, there are essentially no national laws
     that are invokable in any way. This is a fast-growing
     trend.)
  + Motivations for Cypherpunks
    - Privacy. If maintaining privacy is the main goal, there's
       not much more to say. Keep a low profile, protect data,
       avoid giving out personal information, limit the number
       of bank loans and credit applications, pay cash often,
       etc.
    - Privacy in activism.
    + New Structures. Using cryptographic constructs to build
       new political, economic, and even social structures.
      - Political: Voting, polling, information access,
         whistleblowing
      - Economic: Free markets, information markets, increased
         liquidity, black markets
      - Social: Cyberspatial communities, True Names
  - Publically inspectable algorithms always win out over
     private, secret algorithms
 4.8.2. "What is the American attitude toward privacy and
   encryption?"
  + There are two distinct (and perhaps simultaneously held)
     views that have long been found in the American psyche:
    - "A man's home is his castle." "Mind your own business."
       The frontier and Calvinist sprit of keeping one's
       business to one's self.
    - "What have you got to hide?" The nosiness of busybodies,
       gossiping about what others are doing, and being
       suspicious of those who try too hard to hide what they
       are doing.
  + The American attitude currently seems to favor privacy over
     police powers, as evidenced by a Time-CNN poll:
    - "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last
       week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more
       important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to
       preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When
       informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed
       it." [Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys,"
       _TIME_, 1994-03-04.]
  - The answer given is clearly a function of how the question
     is phrased. Ask folks if they favor "unbreakable
     encryption" or "fortress capabilities" for terrorists,
     pedophiles, and other malefactors, and they'll likely give
     a quite different answer. It is this tack now being taken
     by the Clipper folks. Watch out for this!
  - Me, I have no doubts.
  - As Perry Metzger puts it, "I find the recent disclosures
     concerning U.S. Government testing of the effects of
     radiation on unknowing human subjects to be yet more
     evidence that you simply cannot trust the government with
     your own personal safety. Some people, given positions of
     power, will naturally abuse those positions, often even if
     such abuse could cause severe injury or death. I see little
     reason, therefore, to simply "trust" the U.S. government --
     and given that the U.S. government is about as good as they
     get, its obvious that NO government deserves the blind
     trust of its citizens. "Trust us, we will protect you"
     rings quite hollow in the face of historical evidence.
     Citizens must protect and preserve their own privacy -- the
     government and its centralized cryptographic schemes
     emphatically cannot be trusted." [P.M., 1994-01-01]
 4.8.3. "How is 1994 like 1984?"
  - The television ad for Clipper: "Clipper--why 1994 _will_ be
     like 1984"
  + As Mike Ingle puts it:
    - 1994: Wiretapping is privacy
             Secrecy is openness
             Obscurity is security
 4.8.4. "We anticipate that computer networks will play a more and
   more important role in many parts of our lives.  But this
   increased computerization brings tremendous dangers for
   infringing privacy.  Cypherpunks seek to put into place
   structures which will allow people to preserve their privacy
   if they choose.  No one will be forced to use pseudonyms or
   post anonymously. But it should be a matter of choice how
   much information a person chooses to reveal about himself
   when he communicates.  Right now, the nets don't give you
   that much choice.  We are trying to give this power to
   people."  [Hal Finney, 1993-02-23]
 4.8.5. "If cypherpunks contribute nothing else we can create a real
   privacy advocacy group, advocating means of real self-
   empowerment, from crypto to nom de guerre credit cards,
   instead of advocating further invasions of our privacy as the
   so-called privacy advocates are now doing!" [Jim Hart, 1994-
   09-08]

 4.9.1. "How can we get more people to use crypto?"
  - telling them about the themes of Cypherpunks
  - surveillance, wiretapping, Digital Telephony, Clipper, NSA,
     FinCEN, etc....these things tend to scare a lot of folks
  - making PGP easier to use, better integration with mailers,
     etc.
  - (To be frank, convincing others to protect themselves is
     not one of my highest priorities.  Then why have I written
     this megabyte-plus FAQ? Good question. Getting more users
     is a general win, for obvious reasons.)
 4.9.2. "Who needs to encrypt?"
  + Corporations
    - competitors...fax transmissions
    + foreign governments
      - Chobetsu, GCHQ, SDECE, Mossad, KGB
    + their own government
      - NSA intercepts of plans, investments
  + Activist Groups
    - Aryan Nation needs to encrypt, as FBI has announced their
       intent to infiltrate and subvert this group
    - RU-486 networks
    - Amnesty International
  + Terrorists and Drug Dealers
    - clearly are clueless at times (Pablo Escobar using a
       cellphone!)
    - Triads, Russian Mafia, many are becoming crypto-literate
    - (I've been appoached-'nuff said)
  + Doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, etc.
    - to preserve records against theft, snooping, casual
       examination, etc.
    - in many cases, a legal obligation has been attached to
       this  (notably, medical records)
    - the curious situation that many people are essentially
       _required_ to encrypt (no other way to ensure standards
       are met) and yet various laws exists to limit
       encryption...ITAR, Clipper, EES
    - (Clipper is a partial answer, if unsatisfactory)
 4.9.3. "When should crypto be used?"
  - It's an economic matter. Each person has to decide when to
     use it, and how. Me, I dislike having to download messages
     to my home machine before I can read them. Others use it
     routinely.

4.10.1. A technological approach to freedom and privacy:
  - "Freedom is, practically, given as much (or more) by the
     tools we can build to protect it, as it is by our ability
     to convince others who violently disagree with us not to
     attack us.  On the Internet we have tools like anon
     remailers and PGP that give us a great deal of freedom
     from coercion even in the midst of censors. Thus, these
     tools piss off fans of centralized information control, the
     defenders of the status quo, like nothing else on the
     Internet."  [ (Nobody),  libtech-
     l@netcom.com, 1994-06-08]
  + Duncan Frissell, as usual, put it cogently:
    - "If I withhold my capital from some country or enterprise
       I am not  threatening to kill anyone.  When a "Democratic
       State" decides to do something, it does so with armed
       men.  If you don't obey, they tend to shoot....[I]f
       technological change enhances the powers of individuals,
       their power is enhanced no matter what the government
       does.
       
       "If the collective is weakened and the individual
       strengthened by the fact that I have the power of cheap
       guns, cars, computers, telecoms, and crypto then the
       collective has been weakened and we should ease the
       transition to a society based on voluntary rather than
       coerced interaction.
       
       "Unless you can figure out a new, improved way of
       controlling others; you have no choice." [D.F., Decline
       and Fall, 1994-06-19]
4.10.2.  "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
   temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
   [Benjamin Franklin]
4.10.3. a typical view of government
  - "As I see it, it's always a home for bullies masquerading
     as a collective defense.  Sometimes it actually it actually
     has to perform its advertised defense function.  Like naked
     quarks,
     purely defensive governments cannot exist.  They are
     bipolar by nature, with some poles (i.e., the bullying
     part) being "more equal than others." [Sandy Sandfort, 1994-
     09-06]
4.10.4. Sadly, several of our speculative scenarios for various laws
   have come to pass. Even several of my own, such as:
  - "(Yet Another May Prediction Realized)...The text of a
     "digital stalking bill" was just sent to Cyberia-l." [L.
     Todd Masco, 1994-08-31] (This was a joking prediction I
     made that "digital stalking" would soon be a crime; there
     had been news articles about the horrors of such
     cyberspatial stalkings, regardless of there being no real
     physical threats, so this move is not all that surprising.
     Not surprising in an age when free speech gets outlawed as
     "assault speech.")
4.10.5. "Don't tread on me."
4.10.6. However, it's easy to get too negative on the situation, to
   assume that a socialist state is right around the corner. Or
   that a new Hitler will come to power. These are unlikely
   developments, and not only because of strong crypto.
   Financial markets are putting constraints on how fascist a
   government can get...the international bond markets, for
   example, will quickly react to signs like this. (This is the
   theory, at least.)
4.10.7. Locality of reference, cash, TANSTAAFL, privacy
  - closure, local computation, local benefits
  - no accounting system needed
  - markets clear
  - market distortions like rationing, coupons, quotas, all
     require centralized record-keeping
  - anything that ties economic transactions to identity
     (rationing, entitlements, insurance) implies identity-
     tracking, credentials, etc.
  + Nonlocality also dramatically increases the opportunities
     for fraud, for scams and con jobs
    - because something is being promised for future delivery
       (the essence of many scams) and is not verifiable locally
    - because "trust" is invoked
  - Locality also fixes the "policeman inside" problem: the
     costs of decisions are borne by the decider, not by others.

4.11.1. The Crypto Anarchy Principle: Strong crypto permits
   unbreakable encrypion, unforgeable signatures, untraceable
   electronic messages, and unlinkable pseudonomous identities.
   This ensures that some transactions and communications can be
   entered into only voluntarily. External force, law, and
   regulation cannot be applied. This is "anarchy," in the sense
   of no outside rulers and laws. Voluntary arrangements, back-
   stopped by voluntarily-arranged institutions like escrow
   services, will be the only form of rule. This is "crypto
   anarchy."
4.11.2. crypto allows a return to contracts that governments cannot
   breach
  - based on reputation, repeat business
  - example: ordering illegal material untraceably and
     anonymously,,,governments are powerless to do anything
  - private spaces, with the privacy enforced via cryptographic
     permissions (access credentials)
  - escrows (bonds)
4.11.3. Technological solutions over legalistic regulations
  + Marc Ringuette summarized things nicely:
    - "What we're after is some "community standards" for
       cyberspace, and what I'm suggesting is the fairly
       libertarian standard that goes like this:
       
       "    Prefer technological solutions and self-protection
       solutions
           over rule-making, where they are feasible.
       
       "This is based on the notion that the more rules there
       are, the more people will call for the "net police" to
       enforce them.  If we can encourage community standards
       which emphasize a prudent level of self-protection, then
       we'll be able to make do with fewer rules and a less
       intrusive level of policing."[Marc Ringuette, 1993-03-14]
  + Hal Finney has made cogent arguments as to why we should
     not become too complacent about the role of technology vis-
     a-vis politics. He warns us not to grow to confident:
    - "Fundamentally, I believe we will have the kind of
       society that most people want.  If we want freedom and
       privacy, we must persuade others that these are worth
       having.  There are no shortcuts.  Withdrawing into
       technology is like pulling the blankets over your head.
       It feels good for a while, until reality catches up.  The
       next Clipper or Digital Telephony proposal will provide a
       rude awakening." [Hal Finney, POLI: Politics vs
       Technology, 1994-01-02]
  - "The idea here is that the ultimate solution to the low
     signal-to-noise ratio on the nets is not a matter of
     forcing people to "stand behind their words".  People can
     stand behind all kinds of idiotic ideas.  Rather, there
     will need to be developed better systems for filtering news
     and mail, for developing "digital reputations" which can be
     stamped on one's postings to pass through these smart
     filters, and even applying these reputations to pseudonyms.
     In such a system, the fact that someone is posting or
     mailing pseudonymously is not a problem, since nuisance
     posters won't be able to get through."  [Hal Finney, 1993-
     02-23]
4.11.4. Reputations
4.11.5. I have a moral outlook that many will find unacceptable or
   repugnant. To cut to the chase: I support the killing of
   those who break contracts, who steal in serious enough ways,
   and who otherwise commit what I think of as crimes.
  + I don't mean this abstractly. Here's an example:
    - Someone is carrying drugs. He knows what he's involved
       in. He knows that theft is punishable by death. And yet
       he steals some of the merchandise.
    - Dealers understand that they cannot tolerate this, that
       an example must be made, else all of their employees will
       steal.
  - Understand that I'm not talking about the state doing the
     killing, nor would I do the killing. I'm just saying such
     things are the natural enforcement mechanism for such
     markets. Realpolitik.
  - (A meta point: the drug laws makes things this way.
     Legalize all drugs and the businesses would be more like
     "ordinary" businesses.)
  - In my highly personal opinion, many people, including most
     Congressrodents, have committed crimes that earn them the
     death penalty; I will not be sorry to see anonymous
     assassination markets used to deal with them.
4.11.6. Increased espionage will help to destroy nation-state-empires
   like the U.S., which has gotten far too bloated and far too
   dependent on throwing its weight around; nuclear "terrorism"
   may knock out a few cities, but this may be a small price to
   pay to undermine totally the socialist welfare states that
   have launched so many wars this century.

4.12.1. "Why take a "no compromise" stance?"
  - Compromise often ends up in the death of a thousand cuts.
     Better to just take a rejectionist stance.
  - The National Rifle Association (NRA) learned this lesson
     the hard way. EFF may eventually learn it; right now they
     appear to be in the "coopted by the power center" mode,
     luxuriating in their inside-the-Beltway access to the Veep,
     their flights on Air Force One, and their general
     schmoozing with the movers and shakers...getting along by
     going along.
  - Let's not compromise on basic issues. Treat censorship as a
     problem to be routed around (as John Gilmore suggests), not
     as something that needs to be compromised on. (This is
     directed at rumblings about how the Net needs to "police
     itself," by the "reasonable" censorship of offensive posts,
     by the "moderation" of newsgroups, etc. What should concern
     us is the accomodation of this view by well-meaning civil
     liberties groups, which are apparently willing to play a
     role in this "self-policing" system. No thanks.)
  - (And since people often misunderstand this point, I'm not
     saying private companies can't set whatever policies they
     wish, that moderated newsgroups can't be formed, etc.
     Private arrangements are just that. The issue is when
     censorship is forced on those who have no other
     obligations. Government usually does this, often aided and
     abetted by corporations and lobbying groups. This is what
     we need to fight. Fight by routing around, via technology.)
4.12.2. The inherent evils of democracy
  - To be blunt about it, I've come to despise the modern
     version of democracy we have. Every issue is framed in
     terms of popular sentiment, in terms of how the public
     would vote. Mob rule at its worst.
  - Should people be allowed to wear blue jeans? Put it to a
     vote. Can employers have a policy on blue jeans? Pass a
     law. Should health care be provided to all? Put it to a
     vote. And so on, whittling away basic freedoms and rights.
     A travesty. The tyranny of the majority.
  - De Toqueville warned of this when he said that the American
     experiment in democracy would last only until citizens
     discovered they could pick the pockets of their neighbors
     at the ballot box.
  - But maybe we can stop this nonsense. I support strong
     crypto (and its eventual form, crypto anarchy) because it
     undermines this form of democracy. It takes some (and
     perhaps many) transactions out of the realm of popularity
     contests, beyond the reach of will of the herd. (No, I am
     not arguing there will be a complete phase change. As the
     saying goes, "You can't eat cyberspace." But a lot of
     consulting, technical work, programming, etc., can in fact
     be done with crypto anarchic methods, with the money gained
     transferred in a variety of ways into the "real world."
     More on this elsewhere.)
  + Crypto anarchy effectively allows people to pick and choose
     which laws they support, at least in cyberspatial contexts.
     It empowers people to break the local bonds of their
     majoritarian normative systems and decide for themselves
     which laws are moral and which are bullshit.
    - I happen to have faith that most people will settle on a
       relatively small number of laws that they'll (mostly)
       support, a kind of Schelling point in legal space.
4.12.3. "Is the Cypherpunks agenda _too extreme_?"
  - Bear in mind that most of the "Cypherpunks agenda," to the
     extent we can identify it, is likely to provoke ordinary
     citizens into _outrage_. Talk of anonymous mail, digital
     money, money laundering, information markets, data havens,
     undermining authority, transnationalism, and all the rest
     (insert your favorite idea) is not exactly mainstream.
4.12.4. "Crypto Anarchy sounds too wild for me."
  - I accept that many people will find the implications of
     crypto anarchy (which follows in turn from the existence of
     strong cryptography, via the Crypto Anarchy Principle) to
     be more than they can accept.
  - This is OK (not that you need my OK!). The house of
     Cypherpunks has many rooms.