Ian Goldberg has been one of the cypherpunks who have appeared on the TV news —and no, not in a massive legal issue like Julian Assange. Born in 1973 in Canada, he stood out early in life for his talent in math, even earning gold, silver, and bronze medals in the International Math Olympiad as a teenager. He went on to study at the University of Waterloo, earning a degree in pure math and computer science, and then completed his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, where he focused on anonymous communication online—a topic that would shape much of his later work.
Goldberg didn’t just stay in academia. He helped build teams and technology at Radialpoint, a Canadian company focused on privacy; took sabbaticals at top universities in Europe, and eventually became a professor at the University of Waterloo. Over the years, he’s earned several prestigious awards and published numerous papers on censorship resistance, anonymous messaging, and privacy-preserving systems—always with the goal of keeping our data and identity safe.
About the TV news, that was a thing with the most popular web browser in 1995. He kind of hacked it.
Netscape vs. Cypherpunks
Today, the name Netscape means little to us, and, likely, millennials and Gen Z members have never heard of it. However, it was like Google Chrome in its era, being the dominant web browser between 1994 and 1997. It later transformed into something more familiar to us now: Firefox. And Ian Goldberg, along with David Wagner, broke its security in 1995, in a few hours. That was quite a big deal back then.
To add insult to injury, they did it for fun, basically. Just because someone in the
Everyone went crazy and even TV channels and major media brands swarmed Goldberg and Wagner immediately after publication of their discoveries.
Off-the-record Messaging
Although his most famous incident, Goldberg has also been very busy beyond Netscape. One of his most important works is the cryptographic protocol Off-the-record messaging (OTR), designed to provide confidentiality and authentication for instant messaging conversations. In other words, it hides your messages from outsiders, makes sure the person you’re talking to is really who they say they are, and even helps ensure that if someone gets access to your old data, your past conversations still can’t be decrypted. Think of it like a real-life whisper: secure, personal, and hard to trace later.
What makes OTR special is that it doesn’t leave behind a digital trail that can be used to prove who said what. That’s called “deniable authentication” — during a chat, both sides know who’s talking, but afterward, there’s no way to prove a message came from you. It also uses a feature called “forward secrecy,” which means each message has its own temporary key. If one key is compromised, earlier messages stay safe.
You’ve seen OTR’s influence even if you haven’t used it directly. The Signal Protocol, used in Signal, WhatsApp, Google Messages, and even Facebook Messenger’s “Secret Conversations,” builds from OTR. This was published in 2004 by Goldberg and Nikita Borisov, and it’s still available as free and open-source software on
Against Censorship
Goldberg has also been designing systems that challenge online censorship. His work tackles the problem from both technical and strategic angles—building tools that bypass restrictions while also studying the motivations of those who censor and those who resist. A key example is
Instead of relying on vulnerable external proxy servers, Telex embeds resistance directly into the network's backbone. By tagging encrypted traffic in a way that’s invisible to censors but recognizable to participating Internet Service Providers (ISPs), it silently reroutes users to censored content, making blocking efforts significantly harder and costlier for authoritarian regimes.
\Another notable project Goldberg co-developed is
Goldberg’s contributions span technical innovation, game-theoretic analysis, and economic modeling—all aimed at strengthening the ability of individuals to access and share information freely, regardless of political boundaries.
More Software
Goldberg has spent decades designing tools that protect online privacy, focusing especially on helping users stay anonymous and avoid surveillance or censorship. His research group has contributed improvements to anonymity networks, including innovations to make them faster and more scalable. For example, they’ve worked on systems that let users browse or communicate without revealing who they are or where they're located. Goldberg was also once the chairman of the Tor Project’s board, showing his deep involvement in the development of privacy-preserving Internet infrastructure.
A fun side note: before becoming famous for creating Ethereum,
Tools for Privacy and Freedom
We need tools for privacy and autonomy, more than ever. Some years ago, Goldberg
The platform is also incredibly versatile. You can trade digital funds, register information securely, create smart contracts, launch customized tokens, and even verify identities—all without giving up control. For those who care deeply about privacy, Obyte offers
Read more from Cypherpunks Write Code series:
Tim May & Crypto-anarchism Wei Dai & B-money Nick Szabo & Smart Contracts Adam Back & Hashcash Eric Hughes & Remailer St Jude & Community Memory Julian Assange & Wikileaks Hal Finney & RPOW John Gilmore & EFF Satoshi Nakamoto & Bitcoin Gregory Maxwell & Bitcoin Core David Chaum & Ecash Vinay Gupta & Mattereum Jim Bell & Assassination Politics Peter Todd & Bitcoin Core Len Sassaman & Remailers Eva Galperin Against Stalkerware Suelette Dreyfus & Free Speech - John Callas & Privacy Tools
Bruce Schneier Against Blockchains
Featured Vector Image by Garry Killian /
Photograph of Ian Goldberg from