Widely credited as the inventor of digital cash, David Chaum is sometimes known as the \u201cfather of online anonymity\u201d or the \u201cgodfather of cryptocurrency,\u201d whose work inspired the near-mythical group called the Cypherpunks from which Bitcoin emerged.<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Beginning his studies in computer science in the late 1970s, when encryption was classified at the same level as nuclear technology, Chaum quickly realized that the technology would be crucial to ensure the continuation of privacy and democracy in the digital age. More recently, he founded <\/span>xx Network<\/span>, a privacy-focused blockchain whose connected xx Messenger Chaum hopes will withstand attacks even by quantum computers of the future.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe National Security Agency was taking the position that cryptography was born classified, even if you created it yourself \u2014 like nuclear weapons technology,\u201d Chaum recalls. He was told around 1980 that conferences on the subject would naturally not be allowed and that \u201cpeople who organize them would be prosecuted.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Cryptography, encryption, cypherpunks, xx Network, xx Messenger, xx Coin, privacy, quantum computing, Ecash, DigiCash, democracy, Hannu Nurmi \u2014 \u201cI was risking spending the rest of my life in jail,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Encryption has long been of vital importance in warfare, and the Allies breaking the cipher of the Enigma machine and decoding the Nazis\u2019 secret messages changed the course of World War II.<\/span><\/p>\n Afterward, the United States government regulated cryptography as a military munition alongside nuclear technology. The 1976 invention of public key encryption, which allowed information to be shared between two parties without a mutual encryption and decryption key, which could not be cracked or intercepted, took away governments\u2019 monopoly on the technology. The cat was out of the bag, as they say.<\/span><\/p>\n As a computer science graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley in 1977, Chaum, now 67, recalls how he \u201cstarted thinking how important privacy would be for the upcoming digital world\u201d and, by extension, for democracy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Privacy was the default state in those analog days, with surveillance such as listening to conversations, intercepting mail or searching for records requiring active and concentrated effort. With digitalization, surveillance no longer needed to be active, as data could be more easily searched, cross-referenced and stored for later use. Chaum came to the \u201cfundamental realization that cryptography was the only way to protect privacy in cyberspace,\u201d he recalls.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when I realized it was important to organize a conference on cryptography,\u201d he says with a laugh, fully recognizing the absurdity. The result was the International Association for Cryptologic Research, which continues to organize conferences several times a year. \u201cI called it crypto \u2014 the conference was called <\/span>Crypto 81<\/span>,\u201d he notes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n He was the first person to describe cryptographic money in his 1983 paper, \u201c<\/span>Blind signatures for untraceable payments<\/span>,\u201d which led to the creation of short-lived <\/span>Ecash<\/span> by his company <\/span>DigiCash<\/span> from 1995 to 1998, as well as the invention of blind signatures, a type of digital signature used in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It is notable that some cryptographers, such as Matthew D. Green, have aired grievances with the word \u201ccrypto\u201d coming to stand for, and even being soiled by, cryptocurrency, thus disrespecting its original meaning of \u201cencryption.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Chaum takes the opposite view. \u201cIt\u2019s so exciting to me because it\u2019s bringing what was an archaic, esoteric, highly technical, mathematical, possibly classified technology area into widespread appreciation, so on contrary, I\u2019m happy\u201d to see the word \u201ccrypto\u201d get new life.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCrypto\u201d means cryptography. Not that other thing. https:\/\/t.co\/yaLOOCyx8d<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green) November 23, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Among the most remarkable aspects of Chaum\u2019s work is that his 1985 paper \u201c<\/span>Security without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete\u201d<\/span> is credited as providing the spark from a privacy-focused group in 1992 that began calling themselves the Cypherpunks.<\/span> \u201c[This movement], which originated in the late \u201980s, took Chaum\u2019s ideas and ran quite far with them in terms of rhetoric\u2014in an explicitly subversive direction. For cypherpunks, crypto was at the core of a vision of how technology would cause sweeping social and political change, weakening the power of governments and established institutions\u2026 Anonymous digital cash, one of the key parts of Chaum\u2019s proposal, by itself has political significance in that it offers an alternative to government-backed currencies.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After several unsuccessful attempts at digital cash by various members of the Cypherpunks, the Bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto emerged in 2008. He was soon contacted by fellow member Hal Finney, who went on to receive the first Bitcoin transaction on Jan. 9, 2009. As such, Chaum is appropriately labeled the godfather of cryptocurrency.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But Chaum wants to go further with private, uncrackable payments. In order to have real privacy in the modern age, Chaum explains that actions must be un-linkable both to the individual (vertical un-linkability) and to each other (horizontal un-linkability), meaning that individual actions must exist within a data vacuum of sorts. Unlike PayPal or credit cards, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether are not directly linked to the real identities or IP addresses of users \u2014 the transactions themselves are, however, linked to each other, and publicly so.<\/span><\/p>\n To have real privacy in payments, Chaum reasons, \u201cyou need to use a different pseudonym with each entity you interact with,\u201d so as to ensure that nobody can keep a dossier on a particular anonymous identity. Taking the next step from privacy coins such as Monero and Zcash, Chaum\u2019s xx Network is working on <\/span>xx Coin<\/span> to enable quantum-resistant private payments.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n “The difference between a bad electronic cash system and a well-developed digital cash will determine wether we will have a dictatorship or a real democracy.” Crypto pioneer David Chaum in 1996 #bitcoin<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/jiNh9TCqsf<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 BankSith Lord (@renegruner1) July 18, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Chaum is clear in his belief that \u201cthe only effective way to maintain any level of privacy is to control the information with your own keys\u201d and goes on to explain that continuous government leaks suggest that any information entrusted with others can become public at any time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAll those leaks are forever, and they can be aggregated and amalgamated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Unlike the criticism leveled at the Cypherpunks he inspired, Chaum denies being an ideologue, saying his views are based on practicality, as people need to have a credible assurance of privacy.<\/span><\/p>\n Chaum argues that privacy, over the long term, is critical for a functional democracy because \u201cyou cannot be a citizen of a democracy without the ability to communicate freely,\u201d bringing up a story about how when coffee was introduced in Europe around the time of the enlightenment, it was hated by kings as it encouraged people to spend their evenings discussing politics.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Having a \u201cprivate sphere of communication,\u201d he argues, is the pivotal distinction between China and the West and that payments are a fundamental form of communication. A stable democracy, therefore, requires the ability to pay anonymously according to Chaum \u2014 something that has traditionally been the case with cash.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDid you know that every single banknote is traced from the teller desk to the ATM machine in China?\u201d he notes. The Chinese government has introduced the digital yuan to get a panopticon-style view of every last payment.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite all the attention on cryptocurrency, Chaum seems far more excited about blockchain as a mechanism of future governments. Armed with a confidently deep understanding of political history, he dives into a lecture.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had civilizations we know of for 6,000 years,\u201d he begins, saying that they gained traction when they were able to exercise public policy but naturally became failed states and flipped to autocracy largely because of the difficulty of finding intelligent people to do the government\u2019s work while resisting the temptation of corruption. \u201cIf democracy fails to govern effectively, it gets kicked out,\u201d he says, somberly opining that the west appears to be heading toward such a phase.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Join me in welcoming the xx messenger \u2013 truly a dream come true! A big thank you to all the hard work from the team at xx labs for making this vision a reality. https:\/\/t.co\/zbIFxWEyu8<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 David Chaum (@chaumdotcom) January 26, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Citing University of Turku political scientist <\/span>Hannu Nurmi<\/span>, he reasons that direct democracy, a system in which voters vote on issues directly without the use of elected representatives and which was used in ancient Athens, is the only way to make democracy sustainable. Such a system became infeasible as societies grew beyond the city-state, but Chaum believes that the advent of smartphones and cryptography make the ancient system workable once again after 2,500 years.<\/span><\/p>\n In practice, Chaum envisions the reemergence of Athenian democracy using a randomly selected sample of the population to vote on specific issues using their private keys in a way that he believes would root out the potential for corruption. A natural problem, however, would center around the media, which is immensely powerful in shaping political opinions of the would-be voters.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat type of democracy can scale to the complexity of modern civilization \u2014 no other system can,\u201d Chaum asserts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNation states are proving to be somewhat dysfunctional \u2014 I\u2019d much rather see a sort of global democracy if there was a way to make it fair in a poly-cultural and more diverse environment, which I think I\u2019ve found.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It shows that blockchain outside of government is a very important step\u201d toward such a new order, he says. Such ideas admittedly come across as rather grandiose and utopian in bringing back memories of a curious experiment in blockchain governance on a <\/span>Thai island<\/span><\/a>, but the name behind the vision commands one to envision where it could lead in 50 years\u2019 time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Chaum is taken aback by the success of cryptocurrency\u2019s proliferation since the publication of the Bitcoin white paper. \u201cThe fact that these economic instruments succeeded to be outside the control of governments is a profound thing,\u201d he says. He is, however, no fanboy of the crypto order as it stands, seeing many shortcomings from privacy to vulnerability to quantum computing. \u201cBitcoin is not a digital currency \u2014 it\u2019s something else right now,\u201d he says. \u201cPart of the reason I decided to launch my own project was that I sat in on an early Ethereum 2.0 meeting,\u201d he recalls, coming to the view that \u201cit was not likely to happen in a good way any time soon.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Chaum founded xx Network in 2016, which he describes as a quantum-secure blockchain. \u201cThe first phrase of Satoshi\u2019s white paper is \u2018a digital currency\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s me, right?\u201d he says referring to his invention of the concept itself. In his opinion, both Bitcoin and Ethereum \u201care a little jammed up\u201d and fail to live up to the functional title of a \u201cdigital currency.\u201d They also face an existential threat from quantum computing, which some believe could arrive by 2030.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of ways you can use quantum computing to either steal money or damage the consensus unless both are hardened in this way,\u201d he asserts, referring to the quantum-hardened nature of his xx Network.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe kind of encryption used by Bitcoin and Ethereum can be easily broken by a reasonably large quantum computer in seconds.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts believe that no such computer exists or is likely to come around anytime soon, but Chaum points out that \u201cpeople who have machines that can break other people\u2019s codes find a lot more advantage in keeping that a secret than in announcing it,\u201d again using history to demonstrate his point with the fact that the Allies allowed German U-boats to sink passenger ships in order to prevent giving away that they had broken the Enigma Code.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n What so many people in the @xx_network<\/a> community have been waiting for, is finally going to happen at the end of July\u2026 📈👀 \u2014 Philipp Weber (@PhilippWeber_) July 14, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Be <\/span>calm<\/span><\/a> and don\u2019t panic just yet. According to <\/span>The New Scientist<\/span><\/a>, \u201ccalculations show [quantum computers] would need to be a million times larger than those that exist today\u201d in order to crack Bitcoin. Cointelegraph recently <\/span>reported<\/span><\/a> on an MIT Tech Review report that asserts that such threats are many years away and a successful quantum attack \u201cis akin to trying to make today\u2019s best smartphones using vacuum tubes from the early 1900s,\u201d according to physicist Sankar Das Sarma.<\/span><\/p>\n If such a quantum capability did exist, it is difficult to imagine who could resist the temptation of declaring oneself Satoshi or his predecessor after effortlessly cracking the private keys to the estimated 1 million BTC mined by Nakamoto.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/magazine-David-Chaum-1024x576.jpg\")
Cyberwar<\/h4>\n
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Backed by privacy<\/h4>\n
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<\/span>Princeton\u2019s Arvind Narayanan <\/span>wrote<\/span><\/a> about the group:<\/span>
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A vision for governance<\/h4>\n
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Quantum threats<\/h4>\n
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For those who don’t know xx network, it’s a privacy focused bc\/ecosystem founded by THE cryptography OG David Chaum. Start here: https:\/\/t.co\/aFxIaero9L<\/a><\/p>\n
Read more: 6 Questions for David Chaum<\/strong>
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