In 1886, the entrance to New York Harbor got a modern world wonder: the Statue of Liberty. Standing 151 feet tall, the statue carries a tablet in one hand and a torch in the other. The tablet represents the Declaration of Independence, and the torch represents the US as the shining beacon of freedom and independence for the whole world. Sadly, the US is no longer the torchbearer of liberty it once was, but at times an individual rises and sets an example of how one should fight for freedom. In recent times, that was John Gilmore, the cypherpunk torchbearer who strove to promote digital independence and digital freedom.
John was one of the original founders of cypherpunk, the movement that endorsed mass encryption and anonymity in cryptocurrency payments. He founded Cygnus, a company in whose offices cypherpunks held their meetings. The name Cygnus means “swan” in Latin but holds no deep significance; John chose it because it contains the letters G-N-U. That was the name of his long-term side project, GNU, through which John promoted software independence. John Gilmore was also a long-term participant in the cypherpunk mailing list, where he advocated for encrypted voice calls, and founded the EFF, a non-profit focused on revealing how government agencies abuse their powers.
Early Life and Career
John Gilmore was born in 1955 in Pennsylvania. Little is known about his early life, which he jealously guards, but we do know he had a cat named Teeth. John ended up working as one of the early employees at Sun Microsystems in 1982. There, he worked on the creation of software tools that can be used to set up a computer network. In 1985, John worked with W.J. Croft to create the Bootstrap Protocol, which allowed a diskless terminal to connect to other machines on the network and basically boot itself from a remote source. The Protocol was published as a part of RFC 951 in September 1985.
In 1987, John Gilmore launched his website, Toad, through which he distributed the tools he had made. The website will later host the cypherpunk mailing list and is still online, though it hasn’t been updated in a while. John contributed his tools to Richard Stallman’s GNU project, a collection of tools that will later become the basis for Linux, the free computer operating system that is today the golden standard for network servers.
John Gilmore in the Cypherpunk Mailing List
John Gilmore also participated in the cypherpunk mailing list, but he was always measured and dignified. In October 1992, he announced the deployment of PEM, Privacy Enhanced Mail. It was a cryptographic emailing standard developed since the late 1980s by DARPA. The advances in cryptography quickly made it obsolete, and it was soon replaced by PGP, but it had its moment in the limelight. That same month, John discussed the creation of a system that could encrypt phone calls, which could in theory only be compromised by spoofing the target machine.
John was aware that cypherpunks tend towards extreme statements and extreme solutions, which he tried to temper with his appeals to practical discussions and practical solutions, just like Eric Hughes. In one of his emails from that same month, John discusses whether content distributors, such as email providers, can be held liable for content that goes through them. He compares email providers to record stores selling rap music; should record stores be held accountable for crimes resembling those described in records they sell? He also notes that case law is gradually being made to the point where that will happen for email and internet service providers, who will be obliged to spy on all their users or face government crackdowns.
Eerie Prophecy Coming True
His words came eerily true in August 2024 when Pavel Durov was arrested in France. The creator and owner of Telegram, a popular messaging service, was charged with:
- aiding and facilitating money laundering
- aiding and facilitating drug trafficking
- aiding and facilitating child abuse
- refusing to provide information when approached by law enforcement
The kicker is that Pavel Durov didn’t do any of those acts, but he did enable encryption for Telegram users, one or more of which might have done them. No third party could read Telegram messages to get the exact details of possible crimes, which made law enforcement agencies furious. That would imply that owners of all other messaging services are already complying with government orders and willingly allow law enforcement agencies to look into user messages. On a related note, Telegram started using a digital currency that can be exchanged for a cryptocurrency without performing identity verification, which were the two reasons for the money laundering charge.
John was well aware that governments can force compliance under the presumption of guilt. He called it “theory of power.” If a government were to consider encryption the most heinous crime and institute the highest possible penalty for it, then that would automatically cause willing and total disclosure by the accused. If a law enforcement agency catches someone encrypting their communications, that would be an automatic life sentence; the original crime, if there was ever any, wouldn’t even matter. But, how does one fight back without resorting to boobytrapping one’s home like Timothy C. May, the mad cypherpunk scribe, recommended?
Encrypted Cell Phone Calls
In February 1993, John Gilmore had the chance to play with an encrypted AT&T cell phone, which compressed and encrypted voice data before sending it to the recipient. The main issue was the loss of quality. John describes it as “talking through the bubbler in an aquarium” i.e. underwater. If the two parties already knew each other’s voices, they would be able to recognize each other, but that was about it. John found a public domain alternative called CELP (Code Excited Linear Prediction). Its problem was poor performance — it couldn’t run well in real-time and John Gilmore challenged the mailing list participants to write something that could perform well on a Pentium 486. If dedicated hardware was out of the question, then the logical alternative must be: software.
Cygnus Support aka. Cygnus Solutions
A pet project of John Gilmore was Cygnus Support, a company that was later renamed to Cygnus Solutions. The company dealt with maintaining open source software related to GNU and providing technical support for it. The goal of the company was to popularize open source software and allow computer users to have access to free, decentralized software. The company was later acquired by Red Hat, a subsidiary of IBM that also dealt with open source software maintenance.
The company’s main contribution to GNU was the creation of BFD (Binary File Descriptor), a library type that supports numerous file formats and hardware architectures. The purpose of BFD was to seamlessly port GNU to other architectures. BFD is still used today, but it is intertwined with GNU to the point of being used exclusively in conjunction with it.
The Founding of EFF
John Gilmore was one of three founders of the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) in 1990, where he served as a board member until October 2021, after which he was removed without a public explanation. The purpose of EFF was to be a platform to generate media attention, gather funds, launch lawsuits against the government, and educate the public about digital privacy. In the words of the founders, they wanted to extend the US Constitution into cyberspace. Their first high-profile case was when the Secret Service raided a board game studio under the assumption that one of their scenario books was a training tool for hackers. Though the employees’ phone calls were protected under the US Constitution, their emails were not, setting the stage for the EFF to argue for their inclusion under the 4th Amendment.
Sadly, the EFF legal initiative to enshrine emails under the 4th Amendment never got the votes it needed since 2013, when it was first introduced to Congress. The vote would either fail or the Email Privacy Act would get blocked because of how it apparently weakened the US government’s ability to fight terrorism. That means that emails in the US are not protected the same way physical mail is and that there is no need to obtain a warrant to search or read them. Still, the EPA did reveal something extraordinary. The inordinate amount of effort put into blocking it implies that law enforcement agencies are so accustomed to reading emails that removing their access would horribly cripple them. Hence, we should all be encrypting our emails.
Online Censorship As Damage
Despite the EPA failing in Congress, it did its job by exposing what was happening in the shadows. The goal of the EFF was never to stop the abuse of government power as much as to shine light on it and expose all those who are doing it or are in favor of it. The internet will handle abuse of power, such as censorship, just fine, as evidenced by John Gilmore’s quote from the 1993 “The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier” book, where he said, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” The phrase quickly caught on and got a much broader meaning. John Gilmore will later say that the meaning of that quote grew beyond what he meant, which was that online messages censored in one discussion forum will eventually find their way to another, but he added that it still all makes perfect sense.
Another meaning of his quote is that the internet can route around physical damage, such as when a network cable is severed. But, John later added some more context that shows an even deeper meaning. He said, “If you now consider the Net to be not only the wires and machines, but the people and their social structures who use the machines, it is more true than ever.” That means that the internet is the closest we have gotten to immortality, all thanks to information that can be replicated endlessly through it.
Each person that uses the internet can choose if a piece of information is valid and, if so, duplicate and pass it forward. If others do the same, that information will live forever within and between them, even if it’s constantly censored. Each of them will then become a torchbearer dedicated to shining light on censorship, just like John Gilmore. Rather than being a solitary point of light, they can use the internet to create a global community of people who fight the darkness. Those who do so with the aim to spread censored but valid information become virtually immortal.
Lawsuits Against the US Government
In 2002, John Gilmore was turned away at the Oakland International Airport because he refused to show his ID before boarding the plane. He went to the San Francisco International Airport and was told he could fly without showing his ID, but only after undergoing an intrusive search. When he tried to get to the bottom of the matter and discover why the rules differed from one airport to the next, he found out that the US government established secret rules that were updated weekly, weren’t written down, and changed from one airport to the next.
John kept digging and realized the rules were based on a secret law that only a select few could see. He saw a parallel between that situation and 12th-century England, where only the judges could see the law and were not willing to share their knowledge of it with outsiders. Nobody knew if they were breaking the law until it was too late to undo the damage, making everyone guilty until the judge says otherwise. John decided that he wanted to be treated better than a 12th-century English peasant, and so he sued the US government.
In the 2005 case Gilmore v. Gonzales, John argued that airlines have no right to demand that passengers show an ID before boarding a plane. His true target weren’t the airlines but the US government, under whose mandate the airlines were operating. He was likely aware that nobody can win a case against the US government, but he still wanted to take a glimpse at the underlying law. The law did appear in court but only in front of the judge in private, resulting in the dismissal of John's case. The judge ruled that the law is fair, because it allowed people to “volunteer” for the intrusive search and avoid showing their ID. John pushed his case to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear it.
EFF Areas of Activity
Despite John’s lawsuit failing in court, it succeeded in attracting attention to government censorship. If the US government is willing to use secret laws, what else will it do? And, how long before other governments decide to do the same? Soon enough, there won’t be any place safe to run, and everything will become illegal. Realizing that tyranny constantly expands and that opportunistic individuals also exploit the legal uncertainty to oppress their fellow man, the EFF expanded its activity to cover other major areas, such as:
- patents and innovation
- privacy from overwhelming surveillance
My initial impression was that the EFF is a think tank that deliberates at a glacial pace, but thorough research proved otherwise. The EFF regularly releases articles, communicates in plain English, and covers current news, such as the Pavel Durov arrest mentioned previously. Within days, the EFF released an article on the Telegram CEO’s arrest. The article is a superb summary of the issues with Telegram and the increasing EU pressure on Pavel to give in. It is well written, links to reputable sources, and does not use biased language. If you’re interested in any area concerning digital human rights but don’t have the time to find the real news, do check out the EFF website for the latest updates.
Fighting Copyright and Patent Trolls
Since 2004, the EFF challenges patents in order to reveal and counteract patent trolls, meaning individuals and organizations that hold patents solely to sue innovators trying to use basic computers and internet functions, such as streaming video. Their patents exploit legal uncertainties regarding software code to cover vast areas of computer activity without any actual innovation. This Patent Busting Project exposes how broken the patenting system is and advocates for starting over. Through the Project, EFF fights against bad patents that stifle innovation, though it is an expensive process that takes years.
EFF also fights copyright trolls, who harass or blackmail content creators who might have used a stock sound effect or a snippet of a soundtrack. In extreme cases, copyright trolls sue people sharing or downloading their movies by the thousand, threatening a fine of up to $150,000 per movie. That is the theoretical legal limit that is unlikely for noncommercial copyright infringement, but the trolls don’t intend to sue anyone; their goal is to offer a quick settlement for $2,000 a pop, grab the cash, and run. In case you or someone you know has been the target of patent or copyright trolling, contacting the EFF seems like a good solution.
License Plate Reader Data
EFF regularly files FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests to shed light on what’s happening inside government offices but also sues governments to strike down nonsensical legislation. Over the years, EFF sued various state governments over their use of intrusive technology, such as drones for aerial surveillance, and automated license plate readers. In 2019, EFF managed to negotiate access to anonymized license plate reader data to study what law enforcement agencies do with it. The license plate readers are capable of scanning up to 1,800 license plates a minute and keeping the data for years. Since they are ubiquitous and connected to the database, they make it trivial for agencies to spy on drivers without a court order. It took EFF six years to win the underlying court case.
Curbing Drone and Facial Scan Surveillance
So far, the only protection against warrantless drone surveillance in the US is the law enforcement agencies’ promise that they will respect people’s privacy. Though manned aerial surveillance has been ruled constitutional, state courts are worried about unmanned surveillance, i.e., drone use. They are small enough to enter through an open window or beneath the garage door and silent enough that they can enter a home, record everything inside, and exit without anyone noticing them. Unlike a helicopter or an airplane, they can also record audio. Thankfully, courts seem to be proactive in preventing drone abuse, especially in Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, and a few other states, where there are now limitations on law enforcement agencies’ use of drones for surveillance.
The EFF website has a section called SLS (Street Level Surveillance), which is dedicated to educating journalists and independent researchers on how law enforcement agencies use surveillance. The section provides guides in areas such as facial recognition from street cameras and body cameras, revealing how law enforcement agencies gather and share public biometric information, meaning faces, across jurisdictions. The problem is that, the more faces they compare, the more likely they are to get a false positive. In addition, access to facial scan databases is generally under a “lights out” condition, meaning the database owner does not check who is accessing the database or why. EFF also provides an “Atlas of Surveillance,” which catalogs all the law enforcement agencies in the US using surreptitious surveillance. As of late 2023, the Atlas counts almost 900 such agencies.
PlasBit As the Torchbearer for the World
The Statue of Liberty stands as a somber reminder of how much things have changed in the US. In less than 150 years, the nation that was once the torchbearer of freedom in the world has become governed by secret laws and unabashed surveillance. Various state and federal agencies have powers that go way beyond their founding purpose and would make even a 12th century English judge blush. When they don’t have jurisdiction, the US government will act on their behalf, leveraging its economic power to make foreign governments submit to surveillance and prosecution requests.
But, John Gilmore showed that, even if the entire nation tacitly agrees to abuse of government power, all it takes is one person to pick up the torch and shine light on it to push back against it. That is bound to inspire others to also become torchbearers and work on revealing the myriad of ways government power is abused. When the torchbearers start exchanging their information, they and their ideas can no longer be censored, and they become virtually immortal.
Companies can be torchbearers too, and I find PlasBit to be one such company. Throughout my time writing for PlasBit, I was constantly inspired to find obscure, valuable information that is out there but doesn’t get picked up by search engines and lift it up so the whole world can see it. That’s how I discovered the crypto prophecies of David Chaum and how we arrived at John Gilmore, the cypherpunk torchbearer. I relish the thought of discovering more obscure information and sharing it with the world and, if you do too, stay tuned to PlasBit.
