The Wonderful Journey of Cypherpunk: How was Digital Currency Born?
Original Author: Alpha Rabbit
Original Source: Alpha Rabbit Research Notes
Original Author: Alpha Rabbit
Note: This article is just a bystander's narrative. The Hacker mentioned in this article mainly refers to computer scientists who are obsessed with cryptography and network security.
The emergence of printing changed the social structure of the Middle Ages, and cryptography will also reshape the new social structure. ——A Cypherpunk's Manifesto
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In the San Francisco Bay Area, California, there is an inconspicuous small building located in a business park similar to a shopping mall near US 101. There is a company called Cygnus Solutions in it. Next to the high ceiling is a small cubicle for work. There is a pantry in the hallway, which is filled with all kinds of snacks and drinks.
Cygnus Solutions is an entrepreneurial project established by computer scientist John Gilmor in order to make free software better developed.
image descriptionPhoto by John Gilmor via Wiki
On a Saturday in 1992, 30 years ago, very few people came to work.
However, a small-scale discussion meeting belonging to the mysterious group is about to start here.
The meeting was led by Eric Hughes, Timothy C. May (an electronic engineer and senior scientist at Intel, who retired early financially) and John Gilmor, who invited less than 20 of their best friends to participate.
At the first meeting, John Gilmor humorously called this small group Cypher Punk (Cypher Punk)
Aiming at various current problems in cryptography and how cryptography can benefit mankind, everyone started a discussion. What is the relationship between entropy and information systems? What was the message of a recent cryptography conference report?
This small group has slowly developed, and many of them are famous cypherpunks who have had a major impact on cryptography and computer science, including:
Jacob Appelbaum: Core member of the Tor Project
Assange: Founder of WikiLeaks
Adam Back: Inventor of Hashcash, co-founder of Blockstream
Tim Hudson: SSLeay,Bram Cohen: Founder of BitTorrent
Hal Finney: Main founder of PGP 2.0, first recipient of Bitcoin
Co-founder of OpenSSL; Co-founder of RSA Security Australia
Paul Kocher: Co-founder of SSL 3.0
Moxie Marlinspike: Founder of Signal
Steven Schear: Inventor of the Warrant Canary
Bruce Schneier: Cryptographer, Lecturer at Harvard University, EPIC Lifetime Achievement Award
Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn: Founder of Zcash
Philip Zimmermann: Founder of PGP 1.0The word Cypher comes from cryptography and cyberpunk.
The dystopian world is not so perfect, full of the combination of rebellious spirit and high technology. Influenced by hacker culture and the punk subculture, Hacker has a world-saving role in many of the novel's storylines.
but,In the hacker culture, Hackers like to participate in solving the limitations of software systems, solve difficult problems, and create in the computer field with the spirit of playfulness and exploration.
but,
Programming is not the only characteristic of Hackers, the focus is on whether the process is interesting and full of value and meaning. Some Hacker behaviors can also be seen as individualistic creativity or some form of artistic expression.
In the mid-1970s, MIT students started an activity and wrote a special guide "MIT Admission Handbook". In the guide, there is a separate chapter on hacking (prank style), and discusses the history, Hacking groups, ethics, security tips and campaign risks.
Early academic youth expressed their emotions through some mischievous style of behavior. In the MIT Museum before 2001, there is also a black living room featuring MIT, which shows many Hacker stories of MIT in the past.Around MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.
The earliest hacker culture was about finding ways to solve algorithmic puzzles in a clever way, getting into restricted areas without causing any major negative events and damage.
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The "funny balloon" from MTI at the Harvard-Yale football game Credit: MITTime went back to San Francisco, California in 1992, and the first cypherpunk meeting was very lively. As a result, this seminar has gradually developed into a regular monthly gathering.
Communication between masters often inspires each other's ideas. So, the cypherpunks decided to build a
The CypherPunk mailing list, so that other "cypherpunks" outside the Bay Area can also join in the discussion.
"In Code We Trust"
Through The List, an e-mail distribution platform that can produce more than 50 messages per day, all the people on the cypherpunk list can receive e-mails in their Internet mailboxes, and can also directly reply to the content of the e-mails.
The mailing list is like a never-ending conversation group, where everyone can discuss plans, describe ideals, and exchange code and project inspiration with each other.
In this way, the mailing list gradually became popular among the cypherpunks, and everyone exchanged ideas about cryptography, discussed computer engineering, proposed some good ideas, and tested the code every day. Freely share your own debates on mathematics, cryptography, computer science and even philosophy. Of course, there are quarrels and debates due to different opinions and viewpoints, but this does not affect the discussion of issues between each other.
The most novel encryption method at that time was PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, isn't the name a bit cute?), invented by Philip Zimmermann, and the CypherPunk mailing list adopted this method.
Since the 1990s, cypherpunks from all over the world have never stopped trying to solve various complex mathematical problems in cryptography for the sake of their beliefs.
Even after the heyday of December 1, 1996 to March 1, 1999, the cypherpunk mailing list had an average of 30 messages per day.
In 1997, the number of subscribers to the mailing list was estimated to have reached 2,000.
At its peak, Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer had more than seven nodes, and by mid-2005, al-qaeda.net was running the only remaining node.
"In an electronic age, privacy means that we can have, and choose to show our power to the world."
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2. Stories about cryptography
Before the 1970s, cryptography was mainly used by the US military. In the early days of the Cold War, export control regulations included cryptography, which means that the export of such advanced technologies requires a license.
In 1975, Whitfield Diffie, a 31-year-old computer genius, came up with a new system called "public key" cryptography. The public key system dedicates cryptography to mankind in the form of published papers.
From a very young age, Diffie has been passionate about the world of cryptography. His father is a historian. From a very young age, Diffie began to rummage through all the materials in various libraries in the city where he lived. In the mid-1960s, when Diffie joined MIT After the computer hacker community, the hobbies from childhood came to my heart again.
In 1967, there was a book called "Code Breakers", which recorded the history of cryptography. Diffie got into it, like chasing a dream, traveling all over the world, looking for information about cryptography.This matter was very difficult at the time, because in that era, almost everything about modern cryptography was classified, and only the NSA (National Security Agency) and scholars could use it.Then Diffie went to the eastern United States, where he met his future wife, and they moved back to Stanford together to continue their exploration of cryptography. in 1976,Whitfield Diffie and Stanford computer scientist Martin Hellman join forces，"New Directions in Cryptography"。
Take this discipline to the wider world
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"New Directions in Cryptography"Why is the invention of public key cryptography so great?
explain:
Every user in the system has two keys - a public key and a private key. The public key can be released to everyone without affecting security (similar to the account number of a bank account, which can be released to the outside world to allow everyone to transfer money to your account) but the private key needs to be kept secret (like your bank card withdrawal password) cannot let anyone know the private key.
For example: if I want to send you a secret letter, I can encrypt it with your public key, send the letter to you, and you can decrypt the letter with your private key.This principle can also be used for authentication.
Encryption scenario:A encrypts the information with B's public key and sends it to B, and B gets the ciphertext and decrypts it with B's private key;
Signature scene:
A signs with the private key and sends it to B, and B uses A's public key to verify the information to prove that the message comes from A;
Many consider public key cryptography to be one of the most revolutionary new concepts in cryptography since the Renaissance.
But this invention was completely developed by people who have an infinite love for cryptography through their own exploration.By the end of 1975, when Diffie and Hellman were preparing to publish their papers, a wave of cryptography centered on academia was setting off. Countless emerging cryptographers, like Diffie, had read "Code Breakers" and were impressed by the plot and heroism in it. Attracted.
More importantly, everyone realizes thatThe widespread use of computers will further advance the application scenarios of cryptography. They realized that the accelerated use of computers would mean a surge in growth for the field.
Cryptographers began regular academic conferences, and academic societies in the field of cryptography gradually began to create their own journals.
In 1977, at the serious and lively Massachusetts Institute of Technology, computer scientists Rivest, Shamir and Adleman proposed a cryptographic method called RSA (RSA is named after their three initials)
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Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman
RSA has been improved on the basis of previous public key cryptography and is relatively flexible. These algorithms were finally patented and licensed to RSA Data Security. Customers who have integrated RSA software in their systems include Apple, Microsoft, WordPerfect, Novell and AT&T.
In the eyes of cypherpunks, cryptography is too important to become a privacy tool that everyone can use. This is the heroism that belongs to Hacker's heart.
Phil Zimmermann, the inventor of PGP mentioned above, was still a computer engineer obsessed with cryptography. When he first heard about the science of public key encryption, he spent a lot of spare time on "using cryptography to save the world". "The idealistic work.
Phil Zimmermann thinks, why can't the RSA algorithm be used to implement a public key system on a personal computer?
Zimmermann began to think about this problem in 1977. Since Zimmermann was not a professional cryptographer, he did not realize RSA on the PC side until 1986, and wrote one he called BassOMatic a year later (this name comes from the one he often sees. A skit show on Saturday) method.
In June 1991, after a lot of hard work, Zimmermann was ready to release PGP (the cypherpunk email encryption method we mentioned earlier), although once, Zimmermann planned to charge users, but after thinking for a long time, he felt that his research should be free Dedicated to all.
However, in order to study PGP and be willing to open source it, Zimmermann almost paid off the mortgage. However, the good news is that when the first version of PGP (which only runs on PCs) was released on the Internet, within a few hours, people all over the world downloaded PGP.
However, RSA Data Security, the parent company of RSA, was not happy because they felt that Zimmermann had recklessly incorporated RSA's patented algorithm into PGP. Zimmermann's explanation for this was that he did not sell PGP for profit, but used it as a research The project is popularized by the public.
Many people think that PGP spreads the gospel of public key cryptography to the public in an open source model, which is the best thing about the development of RSA.
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3. From cypherpunk to digital currency
The Internet is borderless and international. Will there be a native currency or digital currency derived from computer networks? It keeps everyone on a level playing field.
But at that time, the digital currency had a technical problem that no one had been able to crack: the double spend problem.
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Double Pay Problem (Double Pay)
What exactly is the double spend problem? For example, I have a digital currency of 10 yuan. The digital currency is essentially a piece of code on the hard disk. If I copy and paste it, the digital currency of 10 yuan can be consumed twice. This situation will lead to digital currency not having a "single attribute".
How do digital payment companies like PayPal solve this problem?
If the double-spend problem could be solved without relying on a trusted third party, it would be possible to create a digital currency native to computer networks.
The early cypherpunk pioneers, starting from solving existing problems, started the road of continuing exploration.
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Cryptographer David Chaum is considered by many to be one of the fathers of the cypherpunk movement. Chaum has published numerous papers on topics such as anonymous digital cash and pseudonym systems, the following is the paper "Security without identification: Card Computers to make Big Brother Obsolete" published in 1985
Chaumian eCash
A person is like a team of David Chaum, who single-handedly created the field of anonymous communication research, and independently invented many encryption protocols, including Group Signatures, Mix Networks, and Blind Signatures, etc.
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In 1990, David Chaum made the first attempt to invent digital currency: DigiCash.
DigiCash is committed to applying emerging cryptography to protect user privacy while solving the double spend problem. The underlying algorithm, known as eCash, was first published in 1982 and has since been improved by other cryptographers.
Chaumian eCash is a major leap forward for digital currency. However, in 1998, the eCash (DigiCash) company went bankrupt because more and more users used credit cards and PayPal, although these payment systems could not really protect user privacy, eCash went bankrupt.
The cypherpunks saw this failure and realized that Chaumian eCash had another previously underappreciated weakness: the digital currency could not be dependent on a single company. If digital cash is to thrive, it must be truly decentralized.
DigiCash is not the only attempt to create a digital currency. Cypherpunks have launched many experiments, including Mojo Nation (Mojo is a digital cash currency designed to provide attack resistance and load balancing in a fully distributed and incentive-compatible manner.
At the same time, in addition to the cypherpunks, many people have begun to work on creating digital currency: e-gold, established in 1996, was one of the first Internet companies to create digital currency, two years earlier than PayPal.
e-gold issues a digital currency backed by gold reserves that anyone can hold and transfer. At its peak, e-gold processed more than $2 billion in transfers per year. It is very popular, but because it has almost no restrictions on registrations, the currency is ravaged by scammers and cybercriminals.
U.S. officials took notice and after a lengthy court case e-gold was found guilty of money laundering and retrospective violations of remittance laws. The founders were found criminally responsible and all e-gold balances were frozen in 2008. In the next five years, the relevant departments of the United States arranged for the redemption of all electronic gold account holders.
E-gold has triggered another important consideration: how to treat regulation?
In 1997, Adam Back created Hashcash, the first attempt at an anonymous transaction system.
In 1998, Wei Dai published a proposal on B-Money.
This proposal points to two approaches to maintaining transaction data; a) each participant in the network would maintain a separate database recording user fund amounts; b) all records would be kept by specific groups of users.
The method proposed by Wei Dai is called "Proof of Stake" (POS), and Ethereum (ETH) borrows this idea.
If you read the Ethereum white paper, you can see Vitalik's acknowledgment of the cypherpunks.
In 2004, Hal Finney borrowed Adam Back's Hashcash and created RPoW; (that is, one of the important reference elements of the workload proof adopted by BTC)
In 2005, Nick Szabo published a proposal for Bitgold based on Hal Finney and many previous ideas.
The cypherpunks feel that cryptography is crucial to the sovereignty of the internet.
The invention of Diffie-Hellman, RSA, and PGP heralded real freedom for ordinary users in digital speech.
Cryptography advocates argue that countries outside the United States also need encryption software. Moreover, the lack of encryption technology will hinder the development of e-commerce. In the end, the first generation of cryptographers won, and the export and dissemination of encryption technology were gradually liberalized.
The earliest cypherpunks won their first cryptowars.
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From the Bretton Woods system to Satoshi Nakamoto
Then, under the influence of multiple factors such as the uneven economic development of various countries after the war, and the institutional defects of the Bretton Woods system, including the role of the US dollar, and the interests of the United States at that time, the Bretton Woods system collapsed. People began to discuss that the future international monetary system may not necessarily be dominated by sovereign currencies, and there are other possibilities.
With the outbreak of the US financial crisis in 2008, some experts also doubted the credit system of commercial banks.
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"Perhaps clinging to the gold standard is doomed"
In the second year after the outbreak of the financial crisis, on January 3, 2009 in Helsinki, Finland, Satoshi first built and compiled an open source code on a small server, and ran the SHA256 calculation.
At 18:15 on March 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto created the first block in the Bitcoin world
The rule of the Bitcoin world is that all people in the BTC system can obtain some Bitcoins by solving mathematical puzzles. The stronger the computing power, the faster you can get bitcoin rewards in a sense.
The author still does not know whether there is an emotional connection between Satoshi Nakamoto and Cypherpunk, and whether he participated in the early Cypherpunk discussions about cryptography.
However, even today in 2022, when I open the discussion list of Cypherpunk 30 years ago, I can really feel everyone's deep love for technology, cryptography and technology.
The early development and progress of cryptography was indeed used in national defense and network security, and applied to many technological scenarios that can truly benefit the entire human race.
To a large extent, this is inseparable from the contributions of countless computer-obsessed and rebellious cypherpunks.
In the world of Cypherpunk, everyone starts from solving problems and is committed to maintaining privacy. With the development and principles of cryptography, this spirit of cooperation and selfless sharing has evolved into a firm belief.
Today, in the world where the concept of Web3 is developing rapidly, there are also cypherpunks who believe that the NFT and blockchain in many scenarios of Web3 are open by default, and the ownership and security are not necessarily what everyone imagines, and it is difficult to predict the future. In what direction will it develop.
