Encryption and CypherPunk Culture

Announcing winner of ThinkCentre Tiny giveaway

A few weeks ago one of my followers mentioned a text document called THE CYPHERNOMICON. I have been posting selections from it, as I have been reading it, on both the Fediverse and Nostr. Haven’t read it all yet, as it is quite lengthy.

Here’s an example:

4.5.3. "The admonition, "Cypherpunks write code," should be taken
metaphorically. I think "to write code" means to take
unilateral effective action as an individual. That may mean
writing actual code, but it could also mean dumpster diving
at Mycrotronx and anonymously releasing the recovered
information. It could also mean creating an offshore digital
bank. Don't get too literal on us here. What is important
is that Cypherpunks take personal responsibility for
empowering themselves against threats to privacy." [Sandy
Sandfort, 1994-07-08]

https://cdn.nakamotoinstitute.org/docs/cyphernomicon.txt

Much of it is referenced by numbers, like that 4.5.3, so that you can quickly look up a quote or section.

I believe the document was mostly composed in 1994, but despite being ‘ancient’ it talks about a lot of concepts that are very relevant to our current time. It mentions the concept of Digital Cash even though the Bitcoin Whitepaper would not be published for another 15 years. PGP 2.0 (Pretty Good Privacy) had been release just a few years prior in 1992 and that had been a game changer for Public Private Key Encryption.

Now we use encryption constantly with internet traffic and take it for granted, as it is mostly behind the scenes. As a Linux system administrators, we use SSH (secure shell) to securely access remote servers. Encryption allows us to keep that traffic from being observed by others and encrypted passwords and keys allow us access while keeping all others out.

Digital Cash

The usefulness of what are now known as “crypto-currencies” is still being worked out and far from decided in public opinion. The ‘crypto’ in ‘crypto-currency’ is short for cryptography and a related word is encryption.

Secure communications, that are made possible by encryption, are the foundation for why computers have become so useful to us.

Taking that one step further to Digital Cash that is secured by Public Private Key Encryption is potentially a big deal. Technology commentators in the ‘90s were very excited about the possibility of what they called ‘micro-transactions’ where you could send someone located on another continent a tiny amount like a penny or five cents without the overhead cost of an international bank transfer or credit card fees.

This is all possible now. So are we living in the future yet?

Well, not really.

Just like we have amazing open source technologies like Linux that are powerful and freely available, and a wealth of other open source applications, the reality is that just a small percentage of people actually use them.

I think the same apples to Digital Cash. The technology is here, astounding in what it can do… but almost no one uses it.

My Use Case for Digital Cash

So I have a very real problem with this newsletter and my Weekly Computer Giveaway. A lot of my subscribers are from outside my country (I live in the United States of America). One of the winners that I’ve shipped a computer to lived outside the USA, quite far away. Shipping was expensive!

There are some countries that I know that I cannot ship to or if I did, there’s a high likelihood that the package with the computer would never get delivered to the winner.

Customs forms and fees are another barrier to me easily giving a computer to someone outside my own country. The receiver of my free gift may have to declare it and pay import taxes. This all puts a damper on what is supposed to be a positive experience.

So what if I offered another prize option that I could send to the winner digitally, instead of physically. But it has to have real value, not “My PDF book on How To Be Awesome at Linux” with information that could already be freely accessed in hundreds, if not thousands, of other places on the internet.

Digital Cash solves this problem.

I can offer $50 of Digital Cash to the winner if they decide they don’t want the computer or it is too difficult or expensive for me to physically ship a computer to them. Digital Cash, made possible by computer encryption, gives me a solution to my problem.

My Updated Terms for Me Giving Away Free Stuff

So I want to keep on giving away a computer a week with Linux installed on it.

But if the winner decides they don’t want the computer, they can opt to receive $50 (USD) worth of either Bitcoin Cash (symbol BCH) or Monero (symbol XMR).

If the winner is outside the United States and shipping a computer to them would be prohibitively expensive for me, I can opt to offer them $50 worth of Digital Cash instead.

That way the winner can still get something valuable but we don’t have to waste a lot of value shipping a single item across oceans.

If the winner does not like crypto-currencies and would prefer not to use them, they can say “Thanks, but no thanks” and decline their winnings.

So, who’s this week’s winner?

okid***@*****.co.uk

From the looks of that email address, it is likely the winner does NOT live in the United States.

If that’s you, reply from that email address to claim this ThinkCentre M710q Tiny.

The winner was randomly selected using a command from the GNU Core Utilities.

shuf -n 1 subscriber-export.csv

I appreciate you reading and sharing this newsletter. Feel free to reply by email or engage with me on the fediverse or nostr.

Until next time,

— Matthew from RetroEdge.Tech