TIL in 1977 the NSA tried to block MIT's public key cryptography research, calling it a modern weapon. 20 yr old Mark Miller secretly copied the paper, shared it nationwide, and told friends: "If I disappear, share this." In 1978, the gov backed down, and encryption went public

In the 90s the US tried to treat encryption like weapons, making it illegal to export without approval

To argue that cryptographic code is speech protected by the first amendment people got tattoos of encryption algorithms and asked "can I go to a foreign country now?"

/ethereum foundation | control the memes control the minds paragraph.xyz/@chaskin

Getting that tattoo and then becoming a weapon in the eye of the state is pretty metal