"If you see a proposal for an electronic money system, check to see whether it has the ability to preserve the privacy of financial transactions the way paper money does today. If not, realize that the proposal is designed to harm, not help, individual privacy." — Hal Finney (Protecting privacy with electronic cash, 1993) #digitalcash #privacy #warning

"The best defense against abusive government is an informed and active citizenry." — Whitfield Diffie (Congressional testimony, 1993) #government #defense

"Digital cash, untraceable and anonymous (like real cash), is also coming, though various technical and practical hurdles remain." — Tim May (Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities, 1994) #digitalcash #anonymity #privacy

"The goal of electronic cash is to allow these same kinds of private transactions to take place electronically." — Hal Finney (Protecting privacy with electronic cash, 1993) #digitalcash #privacy #transactions

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

"These legal victories would probably not have been possible without the ability to break the law." — Moxie Marlinspike (We Should All Have Something To Hide, 2013) #law #civildisobedience #democracy #change

"Digital pseudonyms, the creation of persistent network personas that cannot be forged by others and yet which are unlinkable to the 'true names' of their owners, are finding major uses in ensuring free speech, in allowing controversial opinions to be aired, and in providing for economic transactions that cannot be blocked by local governments." — Tim May (Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities, 1994) #freespeech #anonymity #economics

"The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration." — Tim May (The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, 1988) #government #regulation

"The tech powers that be are nothing without our data." — Carissa Véliz (Privacy is power (Aeon), 2019) #data #power #resistance #techcompanies

"'Swiss banks in cyberspace' will make economic transactions much more liquid and much less subject to local rules and regulations." — Tim May (Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities, 1994) #digitalcash #economics #regulation #freedom

"Strong cryptography can resist an unlimited amount of violence. No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem." — Tim May (Cypherpunks Mailing List, 1993) #cryptography #violence #mathematics

"If the federal government had access to every email you've ever written and every phone call you've ever made, it's almost certain that they could find something you've done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don't know it yet." — Moxie Marlinspike (We Should All Have Something To Hide, 2013) #privacy #surveillance #law #nothingtohide

"The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen." — Julian Assange (Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, 2012) #internet #surveillance #totalitarianism

"Digital pseudonyms, the creation of persistent network personas that cannot be forged by others and yet which are unlinkable to the 'true names' of their owners, are finding major uses in ensuring free speech, in allowing controversial opinions to be aired, and in providing for economic transactions that cannot be blocked by local governments." — Tim May (Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities, 1994) #freespeech #anonymity #economics

"The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration." — Tim May (The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, 1988) #government #regulation

"There is nothing quite so disempowering as a government that can read all your most intimate thoughts and correspondence." — Philip Zimmermann (Why I Wrote PGP, 1991) #surveillance #government #privacy

"Cryptography is the ultimate form of non-violent direct action." — Julian Assange (Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, 2012) #cryptography #nonviolence

"If you see a proposal for an electronic money system, check to see whether it has the ability to preserve the privacy of financial transactions the way paper money does today. If not, realize that the proposal is designed to harm, not help, individual privacy." — Hal Finney (Protecting privacy with electronic cash, 1993) #digitalcash #privacy #warning

"Cryptography can make possible a world in which people have control over information about themselves, not because government has granted them that control, but because only they possess the cryptographic keys to reveal that information. This is the world we are working to create." — Hal Finney (Protecting privacy with electronic cash, 1993) #cryptography #privacy #government

"What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If a nonconformist tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope, it would draw suspicion." — Philip Zimmermann (Why I Wrote PGP, 1991) #cypherpunk #bitcoin #privacy #freedom #encryption #conformity