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CypherpunkGuide
CypherpunkGuide

Editorial Standards & Methodology

·718 words·4 mins
Cora Aegis
Author
Cora Aegis
Privacy is the right; the tools are how we exercise it.
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Table of Contents

We publish under a pen name. That is a deliberate choice — set out in full on the author page — but it places a burden on us: you cannot check our work against a résumé, so the work has to be checkable on its own terms. This page is the standing record of how we source, how we research, how we correct mistakes, and how you can verify what we publish. It is our substitute for a credential, and we intend it to be a higher standard than one.

Sourcing
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  • Primary sources first. We cite the manifesto, the specification, the court filing, the dataset — not a secondary summary of them. Where we rely on another writer’s reporting, we say so and link it.
  • We archive what we link. Every external reference is recorded as an archive.org snapshot alongside the original URL, because the record rots and a dead link is not evidence.
  • Named claims, named sources. When we quote an expert, we attribute the quote. We do not invent sources, affiliations, or credentials — our own or anyone else’s.
  • Every statistic carries its origin. Figures appear with their source and the year inline, so you can trace them without taking our word for it.

Original research and methodology
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Our most load-bearing work is primary research: measurements we run ourselves rather than claims we repeat. The flagship is a standing measurement of how automated systems read the web — which AI and search crawlers fetch which pages, across a fixed set of user-agents, on a regular cadence — together with our machine-readable llms.txt and recurring checks of whether, and where, our material is cited by AI systems.

We hold that research to the same standard we ask of others:

  • Reproducible by design. We publish our method in enough detail to be repeated — and, where a finding rests on data, the data behind it — so a reader with the same tools can check us, or contradict us. A result you cannot reproduce is an opinion.
  • Collected, not asserted. We publish only measurements we actually ran. Where a number is an estimate or a projection, we label it as one.
  • Dated provenance. Each research piece states when the data was gathered and over what window, so you can judge how current it is.

Corrections
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  • How to report an error. Email cora@cypherpunkguide.com — encrypt anything sensitive with our public key (fingerprint FFE1 ECFE 2C75 7E98 6077 AAE2 56FB 82BD 4541 5835).
  • What we do with one. Material corrections are marked in the affected article, with the date and a note on what changed. We do not silently rewrite a substantive claim and pretend it was always there.
  • A dated record. Significant updates are dated in the article itself; for research, the change is also recorded in the data.

Verification and integrity
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  • One accountable voice. Cora Aegis is a single, consistent pen name, published across the author page, a verified Nostr identity (cora@cypherpunkguide.com), and an ORCID record. The consistency is the point: it lets every claim be tied back to one voice that can be held to account.
  • Cryptographic signing. Our OpenPGP key is published — fingerprint FFE1 ECFE 2C75 7E98 6077 AAE2 56FB 82BD 4541 5835. Download the public key, or fetch it automatically with gpg --locate-keys cora@cypherpunkguide.com (Web Key Directory). Corrections and research releases that carry our signature can be verified against this key, so you can confirm a statement came from us and was not altered in transit.
  • Independence. We are reader-funded through transparent streams — direct Bitcoin and Monero donations now, a Premium tier and editorially-aligned affiliate links later — and we always tell you which is which. We carry no surveillance advertising: no ad networks, no tracking pixels, no sponsored content. We answer to our readers, not to advertisers.

Disclosure
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  • Pseudonymous by design. It would be incoherent to teach surveillance resistance under a legal name harvested by the very data brokers we help you evade. The reasoning is set out in full on the author page.
  • The portrait is an illustration. Every image of Cora Aegis is an AI-generated illustration, not a photograph, and is disclosed as such wherever it appears.
  • Affiliations are stated. Where an affiliate relationship exists, it is disclosed plainly and in context — never buried.

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