"I am active in policy space rather writing code, doing a lot of public speaking. There is a lot of need for activism now in the shadow of the Patriot Act." — Philip Zimmermann (GrepLaw, 2003) #patriotact #surveillance

"Their non-anonymity also means that a dedicated attacker will eventually always be able to attack the system." — Andrew Poelstra (On Stake and Consensus, 2015) #anonymity #security

"The ecosystem is moving towards consolidation because users don't want to run their own servers." — Moxie Marlinspike (My First Impressions of Web3, 2022) #decentralization

"Bitcoin isn't just money for the internet. It's a new form of money that is native to the internet." — Andreas Antonopoulos (Mastering Bitcoin, 2014) #bitcoin #internet #money

"Cash is also necessary to retain agency and autonomy. Autonomy can be understood as the power to make decisions for oneself without interference from others." — Jerry Brito (The Case for Electronic Cash, 2019) #cash #autonomy #freedom #agency

"Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer.'" — Richard Stallman (GNU Project, 1985) #freesoftware #liberty #opensource

"In one direction lies unprecedented scrutiny and control of people's lives; in the other, secure parity between individuals and organizations. The shape of society in the next century may depend on which approach predominates." — David Chaum (Security Without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete, 1985) #privacy #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

"How can we translate the freedom afforded by the Internet to ordinary life?" — Jim Bell (Assassination Politics, 1997) #freedom #internet #cypherpunk

"Cypherpunk cryptography has been described as crypto with an attitude. But it is much more than that, for, more than anything else, what the cypherpunks wanted was crypto with values." — Phillip Rogaway (The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work, 2015) #cypherpunk #cryptography

"Be interested in liberty and the freedom to transact and speak to get back to the original motivations. Don't spend time trying to make government-friendly financial alternatives." — Tim May (CoinDesk, 2018) #liberty #freedom #transactions #government

"The key question at the heart of the cypherpunk movement was not freedom, but the crisis of freedom in a situation of extensive social control of dominant institutions over private individuals." — Enrico Beltramini (Against technocratic authoritarianism, 2020) #cypherpunk #freedom #surveillance #control

"Using modern methods of public-key encryption and anonymous 'digital cash,' it would be possible to make such awards in such a way so that nobody knows who is getting awarded the money, only that the award is being given." — Jim Bell (Assassination Politics, 1997) #encryption #digitalcash #anonymity #privacy

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

"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

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." — Edward Snowden (Reddit AMA, 2015) #privacy #freespeech

"Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age." — Eric Hughes (A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, 1993) #privacy #manifesto

"Since cryptography is a tool for shifting power, the people who know this subject well, like it or not, inherit some of that power." — Phillip Rogaway (The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work, 2015) #cryptography

"What is the greatest unsolved problem in cryptography today? Lack of user awareness." — Martin Hellman (Charles Babbage Institute Oral History, 2004) #cryptography

"We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence." — Eric Hughes (A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, 1993) #privacy #government #corporations