Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet

This book is a surprise on several levels, the first being its physical size: It's pretty small and not too long (about 150 pages).Next (and more importantly), it's basically the transcription of conversations of 4 guys who work at the forefront of privacy and crypto issues apparently sitting around and talking. And at first, it might be easy to mistake their banter as something like that of paranoid stoners, but after the initial impression rubs off you begin to realize that these guys are really getting at the heart of some very big issues that practically no one (outside of Cypherpunk circles) is thinking about.Actually, as you penetrate the inner chapters you begin to realize that these guys have really thought about and worked directly with some of the issues they are discussing, and that these issues are some of the key issues facing modern society today, at least as far as communications, privacy and economics are concerned. Even though the interaction is informal (or perhaps because of it), you find that these guys are able to fluently discuss and debate issues that most people remain blithely unaware of.Key for me are the discussions about economics and democracy. Indeed, rather than the cold-war or Islamophobic paranoia that some governments have acted upon over the years, perhaps the key danger citizens face to their freedoms is really the merger of the state with vast corporate entities that have become defacto entrusted with intimate keys to information about our lives. Interestingly, Assange attempts a very US Cypherpunkly devils advocate stance: "Perhaps it's OK to give over communications to big businesses so long as governments stop interfering, because they are reacting to real potential benefits in the market". To which Jacob Appelbaum rightly counters, "Well, what if the Private Prison industry continued to manipulate laws in order to boost their profits and incarcerate far more people (say those that try to block pro-incarceration laws)"?(What I couldn't help but think about is, what if you were a known dissident that the government wanted to silence? What if they could easily dig out all of your (eg) porn searches from Google or Bing or whatever? Could they then design a life-ruining temptation to send directly at you in order to disgrace your name to the public or cause you some serious legal issues? This clearly would not be very difficult in the current milieu.)It's heady deep stuff, and arguably a conventionally written book on these issues would have sunk like a ton of bricks. This lighter format allows the easy airing in a very readable way.This is, therefore, an extremely important book containing words by 3rd gen cypherpunks (well, some of them...Julian is arguably 2nd gen or possibly 1st gen) who really know the issues and have, after all, been writing code. This is the book you should read right after THIS MACHINE KILLS SECRETS and, arguably, Oliver Stone's recent book.

Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet Excellently written, 186 pages which educates basic - advanced knowledge of the worldwide internet. A must read!!... Covering our past into our future; this book arose from the meeting of internet activists, Jacob Appelbaum-USA, Andy Muller-Maguhn-Germany and Jeremie Zimmerman-Europe, with Julian Assange (under house arrest) in England on March 20, 2012. Editor in Chief of Wikileaks, Australian citizen Julian Assange remains under political asylum in the Equadorian embassy as he continues to fight extradition to the USA by secret grand jury indictment. Julian Assange, in his intro, states: "This book is a watchman's shout in the night." ..."Our task is to secure self-determination where we can, to hold back the coming dystopia where we cannot, and if all else fails, to accelerate its self-destruction." Cypherpunks covers: Persecution of Wikileaks, Increasing Communication & Surveillance, Military Intelligence & Private Sector Spying of Cyberspace, Fighting Total Surveillance With Laws & Physics, Internet Politics & Economics, Censorship ... and "Privacy for the Weak, Transparency for the Powerful".A few quotes: Julian, "...we're now at a stage where the human population is doubling every twenty-five years or so--but the capacity of surveillance is doubling every eighteen months. The surveillance curve is dominating the population curve. There is no direct escape. We're now at the stage where just $10 million can buy you a unit to permanently store mass intercepts of a medium sized country." Jeremie: "I think we have to develop the two approaches in parallel. We need to have free software that everybody can understand..modify..scrutinize.. I think free software is the bases for a free online society...We need to have strong cryptography... We need communication tools like Tor, or like the Cryptophone, to be able to communicate only with the people you want to communicate with." Julian: "...there are math problems that you can create that even the strongest state cannot break... But cryptography can solve the bulk interception problem, and it's the bulk interception which is a threat to global civilization. Individual targeting is not the threat." ..."So new networks are being built up on top of the internet, virtual private networks, and their privacy comes from cryptography. That is an industrial power base that is stopping cryptography from being banned."THESE INTERNET ACTIVISTS HAVE SHARED THEIR LOVE FOR FREEDOM AND THEIR OVERSIGHT OF THE CURRENT MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL TREND OF GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE & METADATA, LEADING TOWARD "GLOBAL TOTALITARIAN SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY".IT IS TOTALLY IN OUR INTERESTS TO BE KNOWLEDGEABLE AND VIGILANT... IT'S A MUST READ, MUST SHARE!!!!!!!!

I really enjoyed reading this, it made me feel like a fly on the wall to listen in with some of the most interesting characters of our generation. And its a great suppliment to other books on wikileaks topics.

This is a recording of an extended conversation, rather than a properly researched examination of its subject matter.It is very interesting but I was hoping for more.

Some really interesting notions, but not what I'd class as a 'good read'. It's too 'conversational' and this doesn't allow enough concepts to be described from one point of view in the depth I would've liked.

Brilliant

important book and not at all hard to read