Cypherpunk Ethics explores the moral worldview of the cypherpunks, a movement that advocates the use of strong digital cryptography—or crypto, for short—to defend individual privacy and promote institutional transparency in the digital age.
Focusing on the writings of Timothy May and Julian Assange, two of the most prolific and influential cypherpunks, the book examines two competing paradigms of cypherpunk philosophy—crypto anarchy and crypto justice—and examines the implications of cypherpunk ethics for a range of contemporary moral issues, including surveillance, privacy, whistleblowing, cryptocurrencies, journalism, democracy, censorship, intellectual property, and power.
Rooted in theory but with very real applications, this volume will appeal not only to students and scholars of digital media, communication, journalism, philosophy, political science, critical data studies, sociology, and the history of technology but also to technologists and activists around the world.
1. Introduction; Privacy for the Weak, Transparency for the Powerful; Hackers, Cyberpunks, and Cypherpunks; Toward a Cypherpunk Ethics; 2. Crypto!; Introduction; A Brief Introduction to Cryptography; The Public Key Crypto Revolution; Digital Crypto as a Convivial Tool; Conclusion; 3. Cypherpunk Meta-Ethics; Introduction; Timothy May’s Crypto Anarchy; Julian Assange’s Crypto Justice; Conclusion; 4. Cypherpunk Theories of the State; Introduction; Crypto Anarchy and Libertarian Society; Crypto Justice and the Cybernetic State; Conclusion; 5. Privacy for the Weak; Introduction; Data, Surveillance, Crypto; Anarchy, Justice, Privacy; Cryptocurrencies as Anarchist Cash; Conclusion; 6. Transparency for the Powerful; Introduction; Information, Markets, and Information Markets; WikiLeaks I: Leaks and Conspiracies; WikiLeaks II: Scientific Journalism; Conclusion; 7. Information Wants to be Free; Introduction; On Censorship; On “Intellectual Property”; On Free Software and Open Access; Conclusion; 8. Conclusion; A Tale of Two Cryptographers; Toward a Convivial Future; References; Index
Patrick D. Anderson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at Central State University, USA, and editor-in-chief of the WikiLeaks Bibliography.
