True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier Read Online Free PDF

connected with “strong cryptography” and “public key cryptography.”
    Some friends were setting up a company to develop “information markets” for the Net, though this was half a dozen years before the World Wide Web and wide public access to the Internet. It was clear to me that the ideas of anonymous interaction, reputation-based systems, digital pseudonyms, digital signatures, data havens, and public-key encryption in general would all be important for these markets in cyberspace. The work of Holland-based David Chaum, an American cryptographer who developed most of the early ideas about digital money and untraceable e-mail, looked to be of special relevance. Chaum’s work on untraceable electronic cash, reported in a 1985 “Communications of the ACM” cover story (November 1985), sparked the realization that a digital economy could be constructed, with anonymity, untraceability, and ancillary anarcho-capitalist features, such as escrow agents to hold money for completion of services, reputation rating services and tools, and “persistence” for various kinds of constructs. In other words, a cryptographically based version of Vinge’s True Names, and even of Ayn Rand’s “Galt’s Gulch” in Atlas Shrugged.
    The full-blown, immersive virtual reality of True Names may still be far off, but the technologies of cryptography, digital signatures, remailers, message pools, and data havens make many of the most important aspects of True Names realizable today, now, on the Net. Arguably, Mr. Slippery is already here and, as Vernor predicted, the Feds are already trying to track him down. In 1988 these ideas motivated me to write and distribute on the Net “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto,” a section of which is quoted here:
    â€œA specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy.
    â€œComputer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other. Interactions over networks will be untraceable, via extensive re-routing of encrypted packets and tamper-proof boxes which implement cryptographic protocols with nearly perfect assurance against any tampering. Reputations will be of central importance, far more important in dealings than even the credit ratings of today. These developments will alter completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even alter the nature of trust and reputation.”
    These ideas have evolved over the years since this was written, but the basic ideas remain unchanged. The Cypherpunks group has been instrumental in implementing many of the concepts.
    In this article I’ll be exploring some of the implications of strong cryptography and crypto anarchy and the connections with True Names. Because this article will be in a book, with presumably a shelf life of many years, I’m avoiding giving specific article citations and URLs to Web sites, as they tend to change quickly. Searching on the names of authors should be a more reliable way of finding current locations and information.
    Cypherpunks
    The time was right in 1992 to deploy some of these new ideas swirling around in the cryptography and computer communities and reify some of these abstractions. Eric Hughes and I gathered together some of the brightest folks we knew from the annual Hackers Conference and from the Bay Area computer community to discuss the implications of these ideas, and to look into translating some of the academic work on cryptography into real-world programs. The initial meeting led to larger, monthly meetings, and to an active mailing list. Jude Milhon suggested the pun