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public keys (and "cypherspace")
a public key is the ultimate platform independent, fully decentralised form of identity. for most there are still trust dependencies involved, of course: one must trust the design of the scheme itself, the programmers who implemented it, and all those involved in designing and building the hardware it runs on. as suggested in 000-hello-world.md, these dependencies may never be done away with entirely in this increasingly complex world. still, a public key is the closest thing to a discrete, physical body that exists in the digital world. all other forms of identity either introduce additional power imbalances and trustful dependencies, or else may be easily forged.
keyed entities, signed statements, and encrypted data storage and communications together form what may be termed 'cypherspace.' only entities with cryptographically sound ways of proving ownership of identities exist in cypherspace. cypherspace exists primarily on the internet, but it also exists offline, in local networks, and even sneakernets. because it is defined by information, it can exist anywhere information may be stored. because information is defined as a change from some initial state, this means it can technically exist anywhere mutable (though of course many such places may be of no utility).
because information is channel-independent and ubiquitous, cypherspace is nearly unstoppable. the weak points in cypherspace are the gaps in one's understanding of the actual behavior of one's tools, a lack of knowledge regarding how to use one's tools to engage in cypherspace, and the obvious nature of the most common ways of engaging with it across long distances. (e.g., two devices sending apparently random data back and forth across the continent are almost certainly engaging in some form of encrypted communication, which may itself be enough to make one a target for malicious actors.)