Crypto-anarchism (or crypto-anarchy) is a
form of anarchy accomplished through computer
technology.
Crypto-anarchists employ cryptographic software
to evade persecution and harassment while
sending and receiving information over computer
networks, in an effort to protect their privacy,
their political freedom, and their economic
freedom.
By using cryptographic software, the association
between the identity of a certain user or
organization and the pseudonym they use is
made difficult to find, unless the user reveals
the association.
It is difficult to say which country's laws
will be ignored, as even the location of a
certain participant is unknown.
However, participants may in theory voluntarily
create new laws using smart contracts or,
if the user is pseudonymous, depend on online
reputation.
== Origin ==
In his 1988 "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto",
Timothy C. May introduced the basic principles
of crypto-anarchism, encrypted exchanges ensuring
total anonymity, total freedom of speech,
and total freedom to trade – with foreseeable
hostility coming from States.
== Terminology ==
"Crypto-" comes from the Ancient Greek κρυπτός
kruptós, meaning "hidden" or "secret".
Crypto-anarchism refers to anarchist politics
founded on cryptographic methods, as well
as a form of anarchism that operates in secret.
== Motives ==
One motive of crypto-anarchists is to defend
against surveillance of computer networks
communication.
Crypto-anarchists try to protect against government
mass surveillance, such as PRISM, Tempora,
telecommunications data retention, the NSA
warrantless surveillance controversy, Room
641A, the FRA and so on.
Crypto-anarchists consider the development
and use of cryptography to be the main defense
against such problems, as opposed to political
action.
A second concern is evasion of censorship,
particularly Internet censorship, on the grounds
of freedom of expression.
The programs used by crypto-anarchists often
make it possible to both publish and read
information off the internet or other computer
networks anonymously.
For example, Tor, I2P, Freenet and many similar
networks allow for anonymous "hidden" webpages
accessible only by users of these programs,
while projects like Bitmessage allow for anonymous
messaging system intended to be a substitute
for email.
This helps whistleblowers and political opposition
in oppressive nations to spread their information.
A third reason is to build and participate
in counter economics, which includes development
of viable alternatives to banking systems,
and development of alternative financial systems
which provide the user with options for greater
privacy or anonymity.
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and services
like Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded made
it possible to trade goods and services with
little interference from the law.
These are examples of centralized, and thus
vulnerable, marketplaces, or tools.
Similarly, web wallets employed by Bitcoin
users are also centralized and vulnerable.
Decentralized and distributed marketplaces
and currency exchanges are more difficult
to target by law enforcement agencies and
may provide more security to its end-users.
A decentralized and distributed marketplace
in development is OpenBazaar.
The technical challenge in developing and
maintaining these cryptographic systems is
tremendous, which causes some programmers
to be interested in joining such projects.
=== Cryptography and law ===
Crypto-anarchists argue that without encryption
abilities, messages, personal information,
and private life would be seriously damaged.
They argue that a ban on cryptography is equal
to the eradication of secrecy of correspondence.
They argue that only a draconian police-state
would criminalize cryptography.
It is already illegal to use it in some countries,
and export laws are restrictive in others.
Citizens in the United Kingdom must, upon
request, give keys for decryption of personal
systems to authorities.
Failing to do this can result in imprisonment
for up to two years, without evidence of other
criminal activity.This legislative key-surrender
tactic can be circumvented using automatic
rekeying of secure channels through rapid
generation of new, unrelated public and private
keys at short intervals.
Following rekeying, the old keys can be deleted,
rendering previously used keys inaccessible
to the end-user, and thus removing the user's
ability to disclose the old key, even if they
are willing to do so.
Technologies enabling this sort of rapidly
rekeyed encryption include public-key cryptography,
hardware PRNGs, perfect forward secrecy, and
opportunistic encryption.
Many apps commonly in use today on mobile
devices around the world employ such encryption.
The only ways to stop this sort of cryptography
is to ban it completely (any such ban would
be unenforceable for any government that is
not totalitarian, as it would result in massive
invasions of privacy, such as blanket permission
for physical searches of all computers at
random intervals), or otherwise raise barriers
to its practical use (be they technological
or legal).
Such barriers represent a difficulty and risk
to the users of such cryptographic technology
which would limit and potentially prevent
its widespread adoption.
Generally, it is the threat of prosecution
which limits the use and proliferation of
a technology more so than the ease-of-use
of a technology in and of itself.
Crypto-anarchism is an ideology that seeks
to create and deploy information infrastructure
that, by design, is unable to comply with
authoritarian requests to break the participating
individuals' secrecy of correspondence.
== Plausible deniability ==
Crypto-anarchism relies heavily on plausible
deniability to avoid censorship.
Crypto-anarchists create this deniability
by sending encrypted messages to interlinked
proxies in computer networks.
A payload of routing information is bundled
with the message; the message is encrypted
with each one of the proxies', and the receiver's,
public keys.
Each node can only decrypt its own part of
the message, and only obtain the information
intended for itself.
That is, from which node it got the message,
and to which node it should deliver the message.
With only access to this information, it is
thought to be very difficult for nodes in
the network to know what information they
are carrying or who is communicating with
whom.
Peers can protect their identities from each
other's by using rendevouz onions or similar,
digital signatures, etc.
Who originally sent the information and who
is the intended receiver is considered infeasible
to detect, unless the peers themselves collaborate
to reveal this information.
See mix networks, onion routing and anonymous
P2P for more information.
Anonymizing communication protocols makes
it difficult to know who is connected to any
particular service or pseudonym.
Because summary punishment for crimes is mostly
illegal, it is difficult to stop any potential
criminal activity in the network without enforcing
a ban on strong cryptography.
Deniable encryption and anonymizing networks
can be used to avoid being detected while
sharing illegal or sensitive information that
users are too afraid to share without any
protection of their identity.
The information being shared could be anything
from anti-state propaganda, whistleblowing,
organization of narcotics distribution, illegal
pornographic content, distribution of reports
from political dissidents, anonymous monetary
transactions, etc.
== Anonymous trading ==
Untraceable, privately issued electronic money
and anonymous Internet banking exists in these
networks.
In the past, this was handled only by centralized
organizations.
Digital Monetary Trust and Yodelbank were
examples of two such anonymous banks that
were later put offline by their creators.
Ukash is an e-money network.
Cash in amounts up to £500/€750 can be
swapped for a 19-digit Ukash voucher in payment
terminals and retail outlets.
Bitcoin is a currency generated and secured
by peer-to-peer networked devices that maintain
a communal record of all transactions within
the system that can be used in a crypto-anarchic
context.
The idea behind bitcoin can be traced to The
Crypto Anarchist Manifesto.
There exist a large number of altcoins, some
of which have opague ledgers such that transactions
between peers can be untraceable (the first
protocol for this is known as the Zerocoin
protocol, see also Monero).
Some altcoin currencies also act as decentralized
autonomous organizations, or act as platforms
for enabling such organizations.
Silk Road was the first anonymous crypto-market.
It operated using the Tor network and all
transactions used bitcoin.
It was shut down by the FBI in 2013.
Silkroad was quickly replaced by other cryptomarkets
and today there are several competing markets
operating in parallel.
OpenBazaar is an open source project developing
a protocol for e-commerce transactions in
a fully decentralized marketplace.
It uses the cryptocurrency bitcoin and was
inspired by a hackathon project called DarkMarket.
Anonymous trading is easier to achieve for
information services that can be provided
over the Internet.
Providing physical products is more difficult
as the anonymity is more easily broken when
crossing into the physical world: The vendor
needs to know where to send the physical goods.
Untraceable money makes it possible to ignore
some of the laws of the physical world, as
the laws cannot be enforced without knowing
people's physical identities.
For instance, tax on income for online services
provided via the crypto-anarchists networks
can be avoided if no government knows the
identity of the service provider.
Assassination Market is a Tor-based market
operated by a self-described crypto-anarchist
going by the pseudonym Kuwabatake Sanjuro.
In The Cyphernomicon, Timothy C. May suggests
that crypto-anarchism qualifies as a form
of anarcho-capitalism: What emerges from this
is unclear, but I think it will be a form
of anarcho-capitalist market system I call
"crypto-anarchy."
Another quote in the cyphernomicon defines
crypto-anarchism.
Under the title "What is Crypto Anarchy?",
May writes:
Some of us believe various forms of strong
cryptography will cause the power of the state
to decline, perhaps even collapse fairly abruptly.
We believe the expansion into cyberspace,
with secure communications, digital money,
anonymity and pseudonymity, and other crypto-mediated
interactions, will profoundly change the nature
of economies and social interactions.
Governments will have a hard time collecting
taxes, regulating the behavior of individuals
and corporations (small ones at least), and
generally coercing folks when it can't even
tell what _continent_ folks are on!
== See also ==
== Notes ==
=== Works cited ===
May, Timothy C. (1994), The Cyphernomicon,
archived from the original on 22 August 2013
== Further reading ==
