Bordel Hackerspace at #39C3
@ccc.de
30.12.2025 08:57
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Bordel Hackerspace at #39C3
@ccc.de
"Creating the Cypherpunk Future we'd want to live in" by @kurtopsahl.bsky.social @ ECC#2
Talk about building a future where technology serves people, rooted in cypherpunk values of privacy, freedom, and responsibility — our work doesn't end with development.
parallelpolis.info/v/omRpR1-g0Z...
"Every authoritarian regime in history started by promising to protect people from "dangerous" speech. The power to censor is the power to control. Once speech is restricted, all other freedoms inevitably fall."
global-free-speech.shakespeare.wtf
.cryptoanarchy.network on Blacksky
💡 Fun fact: The Blacksky community offers people to use ".cryptoanarchy.network" domain as their handle. Which is very unfortunate given that their community is heavily pro-censorship and employs discriminatory blocking practices – contradicting the core values of cryptoanarchy.
Read the full manifesto (it's short!):
📄 Original text: groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/...
📄 Timothy May @ Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy...
📄 Crypto-anarchy @ Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-...
Institute of Cryptoanarchy - Parallel Polis Prague (2014-2024)
8/ Cryptoanarchy was heavily studied and propagated by Prague's Parallel Polis (2014-2024) through their "Institute of Cryptoanarchy". They brought May's vision to life – hosted the annual Hacker Congress, running BTC-only café, and providing free education on privacy tools and decentralized tech.
7/ Today's manifestations: Bitcoin, Monero, Tor, Signal, WikiLeaks and many others. These tools embody cryptoanarchist principles. However, May (who passed in 2018) was critical of crypto's direction, saying compliance efforts and KYC/AML rules betray the movement. "I think Satoshi would barf."
6/ The vision relied on public-key encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and protocols for anonymous interaction. May acknowledged governments would resist, citing "drug dealers and tax evaders". His response? "But this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy."
Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to speak in ones and zeros. Eric Hughes Cypherpunk Manifesto - 1993
5/ This led to the Cypherpunks movement (1992). Founded by May, Eric Hughes, and Hugh Daniel, it became "perhaps the single most effective pro-cryptography grassroots organization in history". Members included a young Julian Assange. Their motto: "Cypherpunks write code"
Crypto anarchy will alter completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even alter the nature of trust and reputation. --The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto Timothy C. May, 1988
4/ May wrote: "Just as printing altered the power of medieval guilds, cryptologic methods will fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and government interference in economic transactions". Mathematics becomes "the wire clippers which dismantle the barbed wire around intellectual property".
3/ The core idea: Two people can exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate contracts without ever knowing each other's "True Name" or legal identity. Interactions over networks would be untraceable through encrypted routing. Reputation becomes everything.
2/ It all started with Timothy C. May's "Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" in 1988. Opening line: "A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy." May predicted anonymous digital communications and currencies would fundamentally challenge government power.
cryptoanarchy
🧵 THREAD: What is Crypto-anarchy?
1/ Cryptoanarchy is an ideology centered on using cryptography to protect individual privacy and economic freedom. The vision: technology can create spaces where people communicate, transact, and organize outside state control.
@mackuba.eu @goose.art @timburga.com @thisismissem.social @indexx.dev @aeshna-cyanea.neocities.org @madebydanny.uk @j4ck.xyz @angrydutchman.peedee.es
Tree: "Why I Left AT Protocol"
gist.github.com/burningtree/...
🔥 It's happening! The first pure DeFi mortgage is live, powered by PWN protocol, AAVE pools and EtherFi weETH
loan.bordel.wtf
@pwndao.bsky.social @aave-defi.bsky.social
8/ The tools exist. The question isn't capability—it's adoption.
Stop asking platforms to secure their honeypots.
Start building protocols that can't create them.
Don't lobby. Build.
7/ The regulated internet will become the regulated financial system: surveillance dressed as safety.
Or we build the alternative.
Protocols, not platforms.
Cryptographic proof, not document collection.
Tools that serve users, not control them.
6/ This is the cypherpunk thesis:
You can't have privacy with centralized control.
Every checkpoint accumulates power. Every database becomes a breach. Every "protection" becomes a weapon.
5/ The technology to do this properly exists:
✅ ZK-proofs for age without documents
✅ DIDs instead of centralized databases
✅ Protocols (Matrix, Nostr, AT Protocol) not platforms
✅ Cryptographic attestation not uploads
The problem isn't technical—it's mandates requiring wrong architecture.
4/ You can't secure what shouldn't exist.
Every "reasonable" regulation creates identity honeypots. Every platform becomes a target. Every support system becomes a vulnerability.
Good security requires data minimization. Regulations mandate data maximization.
3/ Now age verification mandates are doing the same to social networks.
Platforms forced to collect & store government IDs. Centralized databases at scale. The breach was inevitable—regulatory mandates created a 1.5TB honeypot.
2/ Financial KYC turned banks into surveillance nodes. "Prevent terrorism" became: scan your passport, store your biometrics, report your transactions.
Result: constant breaches, mass surveillance, financial exclusion.
pixel art style image, abstractly showing the contrast between a broken, centralized system and a more secure, decentralized network
1/ Just as states gradually regulated access to finance, they're now regulating access to social networks.
Same pattern. Same outcome.
Discord just leaked 2.1M government IDs. This is what happens when you turn convivial tools into checkpoints. 🧵
"A Return to Cypherpunk Values" by Sterlin Lujan @monerokon.org 2024
Advocating for a return to cypherpunk values over the "crypto casino" trend, the proposal includes building a "dark forest" infrastructure to safeguard freedom and unify "punk" ideals.
parallelpolis.info/v/qm978gqLUG...
"Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy" by @susansegfault.bsky.social
A biography of Tor — a cultural and technological history of power, privacy, and global politics at the internet's core. #book
Free PDF: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
Buy: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254818...
Be part of the creation of the new BORDEL in Prague and help us transform chaos into shared creation
→ bordel.wtf
