The crypto wars have raged for half a century. In the 1970s, digital privacy activists prophesied the emergence of an Orwellian State, made possible by computer-mediated mass surveillance. The antidote: digital encryption. The U.S. government warned encryption would not only prevent surveillance of law-abiding citizens, but of criminals, terrorists, and foreign spies, ushering in a rival dystopian future. Both parties fought to defend the citizenry from what they believed the most perilous threats. The government tried to control encryption to preserve its surveillance capabilities; privacy activists armed citizens with cryptographic tools and challenged encryption regulations in the courts. No clear victor has emerged from the crypto wars. Governments have failed to forge a framework to govern the, at times conflicting, civil liberties of privacy and security in the digital age—an age when such liberties have an outsized influence on the citizen–State power balance. Solving this problem is more urgent than ever. Digital privacy will be one of the most important factors in how we architect twenty-first century societies—its management is paramount to our stewardship of democracy for future generations. We must elevate the quality of debate on cryptography, on how we govern security and privacy in our technology-infused world. Failure to end the crypto wars will result in societies sleepwalking into a future where the citizen–State power balance is determined by a twentieth-century status quo unfit for this century, endangering both our privacy and security. This book provides a history of the crypto wars, with the hope its chronicling sets a foundation for peace.

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Business Book Awards 2022 - Specialist Business Book Crypto is big news. You may be an existing user yourself or have friends that laud its promise of getting rich fast. Arm yourself with the knowledge to come out on top in the crypto wars. If thousands of people can lose billions of dollars in OneCoin, masterminded by the now infamous Missing Cryptoqueen made famous by the BBC's podcast series and called 'one of the biggest scams in history' by The Times, what makes you think your money is safe? OneCoin isn't alone. Crypto Wars reveals how some of the most shocking scams affected millions of innocent people all around the world with everything from religious leaders to celebrities involved. In this book, you get exclusive access to the back story of the most extreme Ponzi schemes, the most bizarre hoaxes and brutal exit strategies from some of the biggest charlatans of crypto. Crypto expert and educator, Erica Stanford, will show you how market-wide manipulation schemes, unregulated processes and a new collection of technologies that are often misunderstood, have been exploited to create the wild west of crypto, run by some less than reputable characters. From OneCoin to PonziCoin to Trumpcoin and everything in between, Crypto Wars uncovers the scandals, unpicks the system behind them and allows you to better understand a new technology that has the potential to revolutionize banking and our world for the better.

Uncover the scandals and scams that have rocked the cryptocurrency world and learn how it also could bring positive change for banking and the global economy.

The crypto wars have raged for half a century. In the 1970s, digital privacy activists prophesied the emergence of an Orwellian State, made possible by computer-mediated mass surveillance. The antidote: digital encryption. The U.S. government warned encryption would not only prevent surveillance of law-abiding citizens, but of criminals, terrorists, and foreign spies, ushering in a rival dystopian future. Both parties fought to defend the citizenry from what they believed the most perilous threats. The government tried to control encryption to preserve its surveillance capabilities; privacy activists armed citizens with cryptographic tools and challenged encryption regulations in the courts. No clear victor has emerged from the crypto wars. Governments have failed to forge a framework to govern the, at times conflicting, civil liberties of privacy and security in the digital age—an age when such liberties have an outsized influence on the citizen–State power balance. Solving this problem is more urgent than ever. Digital privacy will be one of the most important factors in how we architect twenty-first century societies—its management is paramount to our stewardship of democracy for future generations. We must elevate the quality of debate on cryptography, on how we govern security and privacy in our technology-infused world. Failure to end the crypto wars will result in societies sleepwalking into a future where the citizen–State power balance is determined by a twentieth-century status quo unfit for this century, endangering both our privacy and security. This book provides a history of the crypto wars, with the hope its chronicling sets a foundation for peace.

This book covers Bitcoin's blocksize war, which was waged from August 2015 to November 2017. On the surface the battle was about the amount of data allowed in each Bitcoin block, however it exposed much deeper issues, such as who controls Bitcoin's protocol rules. It is not possible to cover every twist and turn in the labyrinthine conflict or all the arguments, but I have provided a chronology of the most significant events. This book explores some of the major characters in the conflict and includes coverage, from both the front lines and behind the scenes, during some of the most acute phases of the struggle. The account in this book includes discussions with the key players from both sides during the war, exploring their motivations, strategy and thought processes as the exhausting campaign progressed and developed.

If you've ever made a secure purchase with your credit card over the Internet, then you have seen cryptography, or "crypto", in action. From Stephen Levy—the author who made "hackers" a household word—comes this account of a revolution that is already affecting every citizen in the twenty-first century. Crypto tells the inside story of how a group of "crypto rebels"—nerds and visionaries turned freedom fighters—teamed up with corporate interests to beat Big Brother and ensure our privacy on the Internet. Levy's history of one of the most controversial and important topics of the digital age reads like the best futuristic fiction.

As the Cold War came to a close, a new informational economy and society emerged in the last decade of the 20th century. As such, new approaches to the flow of information were needed. This historical study follows the contentions between academics and counterculturalists and their adversaries in the intelligence community such as the NSA. In doing so, this narrative illustrates how these contentions were deeply ingrained in a Cold War dialogue between open and closed information theories. From the Cold War to the Crypto War follows individuals from the center of the early 1990s Crypto Wars. By exploring their arguments, their associations, and their assumptions from the Computer, Freedom, and Privacy conference as well as from the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (an early internet forum). As Americans came to terms with the World Trade Center bombing and the bloody siege at Waco, TX in 1993, counterculturalists and the NSA battled over the future of informational access. Would it be one where the government had full control over encryption methods (as had been over hundreds of years) or would new paradigms be necessary for the new millennium?