"By understanding that cypherpunk theory and practice each consist of two complementary dynamics—privacy/transparency, pro-active/re-active—it becomes possible to understand that the cypherpunk movement provides the basis for activists and citizens to resist large surveillance institutions." — Patrick D. Anderson (Of Cypherpunks and Sousveillance, 2022) #cypherpunk #privacy #transparency #resistance #surveillance

"Bitcoin seems to be a very promising idea. I like the idea of basing security on the assumption that the CPU power of honest participants outweighs that of the attacker." — Hal Finney (Cryptography Mailing List, 2008) #bitcoin #security #proofofwork

"The cypherpunks were troublemakers: controversial, radical, unrelenting, but also practical. They made things." — Jamie Bartlett (Cypherpunks Write Code, American Scientist) #cypherpunk #code

"We hope this will inspire others to work in this fascinating area in which participation has been discouraged in the recent past by a nearly total government monopoly." — Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman (New Directions in Cryptography, 1976) #cryptography #government #monopoly #freedom

"Again, we need to win political, not technological, victories in order to protect our privacy." — Hal Finney (Politics vs Technology, 1994) #politics #privacy

"The cypherpunk movement provides an intelligible, viable, and effective model of data activism and strategic agency." — Patrick D. Anderson (Of Cypherpunks and Sousveillance, 2022) #cypherpunk #dataactivism #resistance #agency

"Even more than monetary gain, personal data bestows power on those who collect and analyse it, and that is what makes it so coveted." — Carissa Véliz (Privacy is power (Aeon), 2019) #data #power #surveillance #privacy

"Most people are unaware of how visible email is. Email could be intercepted by a lot of parties along the way, it could be captured and logged, scanned and then used years later." — Philip Zimmermann (GrepLaw, 2003) #email #surveillance #privacy #interception

"That's why our primary defense isn't law, but technology." — Julian Assange (Forbes, 2010) #law #defense #wikileaks

"Building security from day one is much easier than adding it on as an afterthought." — Martin Hellman (Charles Babbage Institute Oral History, 2004) #security