Cryptome is an online library and 501(c)(3) private foundation[1] created in 1996 by John Young and Deborah Natsios[2][3][4][5][6] closed in 2023 and reopened soon afterward.

[7] The site collected information about freedom of expression, privacy, cryptography, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and government secrecy.

"[19] The website has also been criticized for posting maps and pictures of "dangerous Achilles' heel[s] in the domestic infrastructure," which The New York Times called a "tip off [to] terrorists.

[21] They continued to post controversial materials including guides on "how to attack critical infrastructure" in addition to other instructions for illegal hacking "for those without the patience to wait for whistleblowers".

He grew up in West Texas where his father worked in the oil field, construction and on a decommissioned Texas POW camp,[25] and Young later served in the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Germany (1953–1956) and earned degrees in philosophy and architecture from Rice University (1957–1963) and his graduate degree in architecture from Columbia University in 1969.

A self-identified radical, he became an activist and helped create community service group Urban Deadline, where his fellow student-activists initially suspected him of being a police spy.

[37] In addition to being co-editor for Cryptome, she is responsible for the associated project Cartome, which was founded in 2011[38] and posts her original critical art and graphical images and other public resources to document sensitive areas.

On January 7 2007, he emailed the internal mailing list accusing WikiLeaks of "disinformation campaign against legitimate dissent" and "working for the enemy."

150 pages of emails were published on Cryptome, and Young publicly criticized the group for their lack of security, their showmanship, and their "dramatic, rigged, press shindigs."

"[88] Cryptome ended on bad terms with Wikileaks, with Young directly accusing them of selling classified material and calling them "a criminal organization".

[7] A 2004 The New York Times article assessed Cryptome with the headline, "Advise the Public, Tip Off the Terrorists" in its coverage of the site's gas pipeline maps.

[55] Reader's Digest made an even more alarming assessment of the site in 2005, calling it an "invitation to terrorists" and alleging that Young "may well have put lives at risk".

[94] In 2012, Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, described Young and Cryptome as "fearless and contemptuous of any pretensions to authority" and "oblivious to the security concerns that are the preconditions of a working democracy.

[24][95] In 2013, Cindy Cohn, then the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, praised Cryptome as "a really important safety valve for the rest of us, as to what our government is up to.

Even though [Cryptome] occasionally does some repellent and demented things—such as posting the home addresses of Laura Poitras, Bart Gellman, and myself along with maps pointing to our homes—[they also do] things that are quite productive and valuable.