cypherpunk

English

Alternative forms

• cipherpunk (rare)

Etymology

Blend of cipher +‎ cyberpunk, coined by American hacker and author Jude Milhon (St. Jude) in 1992.^[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsʌɪfəpʌŋk/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cy‧pher‧punk

Noun

cypherpunk (plural cypherpunks)

1. (computing) A person with an interest in encryption and privacy, especially one who uses encrypted email.

   Coordinate term: crypto-anarchist

References

1. Laurent Gayard (2018) Darknet: Geopolitics and Uses, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 85: “The term “cypherpunk” itself was created by Jude Milhon, a U.S. civil rights activist from the 1960s and pioneer computer scientist, with a play on words between “cypher”, which means “encrypt”, the term “punk” […] and the term “cyberpunk”, […]”

Further reading

• cypherpunk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “cypherpunk”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.