原作：Eric Hughes ·
英文全文 · 中文翻译：SATONAMO。译文保留原作写作时的叙述语境。
中文全文
在电子时代，隐私是开放社会的必需品。隐私并不等于秘密。私事是一个人不想让全世界知道的事，而秘密是一个人不想让任何人知道的事。隐私，是有选择地向世界展现自己的能力。
如果双方发生了某种往来，那么双方都会保有这段互动的记忆。每一方都可以讲述自己的记忆；谁又能阻止呢？可以通过法律加以禁止，但对于开放社会，言论自由比隐私更为根本；我们无意限制任何言论。如果许多人在同一个论坛中交谈，每个人都可以向其他所有人发言，并把有关个人及其他各方的信息汇集起来。电子通信的力量使这种群体交流成为可能，它不会仅仅因为我们希望它消失就消失。
既然我们想要隐私，就必须确保一笔交易的各方只知道该交易直接必需的信息。既然任何信息都可能被说出去，我们就必须确保尽可能少地透露信息。在大多数情况下，个人身份并不重要。我在商店买一本杂志，把现金交给店员时，没有必要知道我是谁。我让电子邮件服务商收发邮件时，服务商不必知道我在与谁交谈、我说了什么，或别人对我说了什么；它只需知道如何把邮件送达，以及我应付多少费用。如果交易的底层机制暴露了我的身份，我就没有隐私。在这种情况下，我无法有选择地表明身份，而是每次都必须表明身份。
因此，开放社会中的隐私需要匿名交易系统。迄今为止，现金一直是这类系统的主要形式。匿名交易系统并不是秘密交易系统。匿名系统让个人能够在愿意时、也仅在愿意时透露自己的身份；这正是隐私的本质。
开放社会中的隐私也需要密码学。如果我说了什么，我只希望预定的听众能够听到。如果全世界都能获取我说话的内容，我就没有隐私。加密表明了对隐私的愿望，而使用薄弱的密码技术加密，则表明这种愿望不太强烈。此外，在默认匿名的情况下，要以可验证的方式表明自己的身份，就需要密码学签名。
我们不能指望政府、公司或其他庞大而面目模糊的组织，出于善意赐予我们隐私。谈论我们的信息对它们有利，我们理应预料到它们会这么做。试图阻止它们发言，就是在对抗信息的现实。信息不只是想要自由，它渴望自由。信息会不断扩张，填满可用的存储空间。信息是谣言更年轻、更强壮的表亲；它跑得更快，眼睛更多，知道得更多，却比谣言理解得更少。
如果想拥有隐私，我们就必须自己捍卫它。我们必须联合起来，创造允许匿名交易发生的系统。几个世纪以来，人们一直用低语、黑暗、信封、紧闭的门、秘密握手和信使保护自己的隐私。过去的技术无法提供强有力的隐私保护，但电子技术可以。
我们密码朋克致力于构建匿名系统。我们用密码学、匿名邮件转发系统、数字签名和电子货币来捍卫自己的隐私。
密码朋克写代码。我们知道，必须有人编写保护隐私的软件；而且，除非我们共同努力，否则我们就无法获得隐私，所以我们要亲自来写。我们公开代码，让密码朋克同伴能够实践和探索。我们的代码供全世界所有人自由使用。即使你不赞同我们编写的软件，我们也不太在意。我们知道，软件无法被摧毁，广泛分散的系统无法被关停。
密码朋克反对管制密码学，因为加密从根本上说是一种私人行为。事实上，加密就是把信息移出公共领域。即使是禁止密码学的法律，其效力也只能到达一个国家的边界及其暴力所及之处。密码学必将传播到全球各地，它所促成的匿名交易系统也将随之传播。
要让隐私得到普遍保障，它就必须成为社会契约的一部分。人们必须走到一起，为共同利益部署这些系统。隐私能延伸多远，取决于社会中其他人的合作。我们密码朋克欢迎你提出问题和顾虑，希望与你交流，以免陷入自欺。不过，我们不会因为有些人不认同我们的目标，就偏离自己的道路。
密码朋克正在积极行动，让网络更好地保护隐私。让我们携手加快步伐。
前进。
Eric Hughes
English · 英文全文
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn’t want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all. If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The power of electronic communications has enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to.
Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself.
Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.
Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to reveal one’s identity with assurance when the default is anonymity requires the cryptographic signature.
We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor’s younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor.
We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.
We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.
Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can’t get privacy unless we all do, we’re going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don’t much care if you don’t approve of the software we write. We know that software can’t be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can’t be shut down.
Cypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for encryption is fundamentally a private act. The act of encryption, in fact, removes information from the public realm. Even laws against cryptography reach only so far as a nation’s border and the arm of its violence. Cryptography will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the anonymous transactions systems that it makes possible.
For privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common good. Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one’s fellows in society. We the Cypherpunks seek your questions and your concerns and hope we may engage you so that we do not deceive ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because some may disagree with our goals.
The Cypherpunks are actively engaged in making the networks safer for privacy. Let us proceed together apace.
Onward.
Eric Hughes