The original leak site that never sold out, never surrendered //

Obituary John Young, the co-founder of the legendary internet archive Cryptome, died at the age of 89 on March 28. The Register talked to friends and peers who gave tribute to a bright, pugnacious man who was devoted to the public's right to know.

Before WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, BayFiles, or Transparency Toolkit, there was Cryptome - an open internet archive that inspired them all, helped ignite the first digital crypto war, and even gave Julian Assange his start before falling out with him on principle. //

The feds launched an investigation into Zimmermann and PGP under the Arms Export Control Act. That investigation was dropped and the source code was eventually published in print, but it inspired Young to launch Cryptome in 1996. His goal: publish documents about encryption and other matters that the government didn't necessarily want people to know, so that people could make up their own minds.