Crypto-anarchism
The term crypto - anarchism describes a practice of anarchism in cyberspace. Crypto - anarchists see a growing mismatch between governmental authorization and confidentiality on the one hand, and state disenfranchisement and surveillance of citizens on the other. Try the technical possibilities that computer networks such as the Internet offer, to use this situation to reverse; So to publish state secrets to subvert laws and to provide free cryptographic software available that lets you communicate about anonymous or can trade.
Origin of the term
1988 distributed Timothy C. May his text The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto on a cryptography conference in Santa Barbara to like-minded people, as well as a hacker conference in the same year. In 1992, he read out the text at the founding meeting of the Cypher punk movement. The prefix crypto in the term refers to cryptography and not, as in the term crypto- fascism, on the disguise of an ideology. Timothy May but pointed out in his essay The Cyphernomicon out that the crypto - anarchism was also intended as a pun with this use of the term.
Ideological Background
Many crypto- anarchists are politically the libertarianism or his more radical varieties, such as anarcho-capitalism or Agorism close. Tymothy May writes in The Cyphernomicon: "What will come of it [ the crypto - anarchism ] is uncertain, but I think it is a kind of anarcho- capitalist market system, which I call crypto anarchy. "
Crypto - anarchists advocate free ( black ) markets ( Counter- economics ) and the right to absolute anonymity in cyberspace and rely on the concept of plausible deniability. They acknowledge that this provides a fertile ground for criminal elements, but argue that cryptography can be equated with the letter secret, which would be granted only by totalitarian regimes.