the new Cypherpunk generation - mf (michiel)

Transcript

[Music] Hello everyone. I'm very happy to see some familiar and some nonfamiliar faces here. I'm very happy to see you know younger people, older people also being in the same room. Um this is not going to be a very technical talk. So uh I don't think you need the level of coffee like you would normally need but still please go ahead. Um my name is Mikil. um online also known as MF. Um long story short, it's not about [ __ ] It's a whole different conversation in that sense. Um today I would like to talk about how we're entering an era an era

of new cypher punks. Um before I I enter into this, does anybody not know what cipher punk is? And if so, please raise your hand. See one over there. Two, three, four. Nice. I always love it when people don't know because I actually get to teach something new. A lot of the people here already know a lot of things. Um, it started a long long time ago when people started caring more about their privacy. I think one of the first mentions in privacy being a digital right happened around the 17th

century by John Lockach. Um back then we had a very different perception of how privacy should be important and it came from the Roman of being prov. Um, privacy means much more than being able to hide your messages, being able to create an environment where people cannot see you. Create an environment where you can, you know, feel comfortable in your own house by because you have curtains. Um, that doesn't mean everybody needs curtains.

Obviously, uh, privacy can adjust to a lot of these information. Back then after the 1700s, we would go fast forwards throughout the 18th and the 19th century where more and more people started to care about privacy as industrial revolution was happening as people started to deal with more um surveillance that was happening throughout the world. uh and particularly around the 18th century with um Fuko the French philosopher talked about his prison where if you are under constant surveillance you are almost having this constant anxiety where you are forced to feel and take a part uh upon the the rest of the system.

It's funny that it started as a prison and that's kind of also where today in the world if we would not have privacy we would likely feel that we're constantly being watched. In 1948 we had um we had the big book from 1984 being written and published regarding big brother and a dystopian future. Uh I'm not sure if everybody read it. You don't need to to be aware of how today worlds goes. Uh but nonetheless, the mention of big brother started a larger social economical scheme where suddenly we had the mindset, resources and space to care about our own privacy. After the second world war, people had a a large

economical relief particularly in the west. Um more about the the east block later in that sense. And suddenly now the common people, me, you, the people outside here had the time to actually consider what surveillance actually meant to them. This is a picture that got taken around 1950 1970 here in Czecha. Back then, Czecha was part of the old USSR and they had maybe first 14 people who were photographing just bystanders, innocent people throughout the street,

which rapidly grew to about 740 people who would just take hidden snapshots of you, me, in the street. They would go around try to find information about people who might be a potential risk, people who might just be interesting or reporter or journalisms. Um, as you can see on this picture, there's there's nothing really out of the ordinary happening. We have people standing by. But what these people didn't know while they were just standing by in today's Prague uh back then's Prague, they were being under constant surveillance to a level where in back in the 1960s we had people coming and they

would stay at a hotel complain about not being enough towels and within a few minutes there would be a maid outside with more towels. It's a very funny thing. If you cannot be in your own hotel, in your own room, if you cannot express your thoughts, what else do they hear instead of just how many towels do you need? This kept evolving throughout the cold war and until the iron curtain started falling while nonetheless all of this encryption tooling and surveillance was happening on both sides of this uh informationational war we had against the west and the east from KGB to CIA to all the different conversations the

people were having. There was a constant fear of surveillance. 1993 tops the the prime age of this under the publishment of a cyberpunk manifesto by Hues. This manifesto bundled all of this economical, social economical and technological fears we had into a very small paper caring about how we as people should stand up. A very big part that I believe if not everybody uh almost everybody will have read Cyberpunk's right quote. Um I would love to see a hand from somebody here who has a rough idea what that means and maybe we can give them a

microphone as well shortly. Anybody has an idea what they actually intended with Cyberpunk's right code? Please raise a hand. Yes. Can we get a microphone here? Thank you. I think it meant that cipher punks write code for cypher pank tools like for increasing privacy also the centralization. Yeah, you're completely right. Although I would argue that it is part of a much larger circle and movement instead of purely the writing code aspect.

Writing code comes from a mindset back in those days where having access to computers was incredibly privileged. In the 1993s to be able to compute proper encryption models and to be able to utilize all of this software that we were trying to write and publish very likely it would require you to create uh a big computer yourself that would cost you a lot of money. It would require you to be part of some kind of a university program that would teach you about these models. It would require you having the social economical status of being able to go to a university program, learn about privacy, learn about code, learn about programming and start implementing that. And back then, I would argue the

majority of the people did not have that privilege. Nor did they maybe even have the desire, which is a whole different conversation on itself. Now we're in a stage of the world in the 2020s midway that everybody here has a computer. You have a computer, you have a computer, they have a lot of computers over there. Uh we have one in our pocket, we have one on the stage and there's so many other microchips being everywhere. Suddenly having access to computers is not a privilege anymore over the past denia. Suddenly everybody can contribute to the cyberpunk manifesto. If you look deeper in the manifesto itself, it would actually

argue that it's more about the practical execution of ideas rather than about the actual writing code part. For the people here who do write code, I'm sure you're also very well aware that the actual time you'll spend writing code is significantly different compared to the actual time you spend on your laptop trying to figure out what you should write about. We're living in a time where people can build and as I argue for cyber punks built. We take our ideas, we take our plans and we try to manifest them into reality by actually working on them. And this can go from all different conversations. This can go from a designer making a new UI to a

cryptographer making a new encryption model. It doesn't really matter that much in today's world how you contribute. The major important part is that we are contributing towards this let's say manifesto. Now this manifesto, let's dive a little bit deeper into the meaning of cyber punk and to head back to the people who raised their hands earlier. Um, it's about four key topics that allow people in my opinion to participate in a cyberpunk movement. Having the right for private communications uh is something we all use. Uh, please, who is using Signal or another encrypted messaging

app? Just raise your hand here. We're all using already encryption tooling and by the use of these tooling we're actively contributing to this system. Maybe on a very small level but still we are all contributing by being users of tools that protect your privacy which incentivize other people to create tools and environments to protect your privacy. The right to have an anonymous pseudonym. Um, who who here uses their full real name online as their username or Twitter name? I see let's say 10% of the people here and I'm very happy you can do that.

I'm very happy you feel comfortable in doing that. I'm also very happy for all the people who are exploring themselves, understanding who they are, what they stand for, to be able to have a space that they can create a psudonym that they can hide behind. It acts like a shield for people and thus it allows people to experiment and without experiment and with the constant thoughts about being surveiled under your real name, we're just going back straight to Fukall's prison. But then in the digital world, anti-censorship is something we hear a lot about in blockchain. um distributed networks creating anti-censorship here and there.

But the true meaning just allows you to do what you want by putting in through your own efforts. It does not necessarily mean that people need to listen to you. It don't does not necessarily mean that people are forced to engage with whatever uh media or information or tooling you create. It does mean that you can do it without it being taken apart or some kind of a government putting you into a prison for voicing your uh personal thoughts. Just as much, it pushes further by having systems where the data cannot be deleted as a proof of what you've done in the past. uh a couple of weeks or now maybe a month and a half ago already the major of Istanbul got arrested under the

thoughts of having a fake university degree. Having a censorship resistant tool system would have allowed this man to easily prove towards the rest of the public information that oh no I'm actually I have this without the totalitarian in government being able to disprove that. And then hiding the hiding um it's a very funny phrase. I always like saying it, but being able to hide that you are hiding something is also incredibly important. Being able to create an environment that people don't need to distrust you because you are hiding something, even if that's the thing that you're hiding might be your bank account or your wallet. It's incredibly important as we humans then to distrust people who are hiding

something. And does hiding the hiding, private communications, anonymity, synonyms, and anti-ensor resist resistance, uh, it allows people to step up and vocalize themsel as a cyber punk with these cyberpunk values. Now, you could argue, and I hear this often, and sometimes I debate myself often as well, but what about the bad people? What about the bad people using all these tools we're building? What about the people distributing uh child pornography on the darknet? What about people selling guns? What about people using encrypted communications and hidden anonymouses, anonymous aliases to plan a terrorist

attack? You're not wrong in thinking about those things. You're not wrong in arguing that there is a point in there which is also one of the major points a lot of the governments try to go ahead and try to ban these kind of a tools or environment. Nonetheless, a hammer can be used to build a house just as much as a hammer can be used to smash somebody's head in. It's all about how we use the tools. It's all about in which perspective we put things together. And sometimes the things we might morally disagree with are incredibly morally important to somebody else. And who are we to judge them based on the technology they tend

to use? Of course, we should we should judge people on their actions, not necessarily on what they use to do those actions with. On the white hat side, we just have the journalists, politicians, uh developers, um just teenagers who want to text with each other without their parents knowing or without necessarily being worried that oh uh let me send uh a spicy picture to my girlfriend that you don't need to worry about this picture suddenly ending up across the whole globe. There's all these other parts of the same coin that allow people to feel safe in a digital environment where more and more people are trying to capitalize on your data and

information. The more information somebody has on you, the less leverage you would have in that conversation with a person. Digital privacy and being a cypher punk means that you can protect your own privacy and while you do that, you help others also protect their own privacy. If we look at today's world, um, in my humble opinion, we we kind of have an environment where we need to combine three important matters for us to be able to engage with these topics. We need to deal with institutions. As much as we don't or do like institutions, they are the ones who are controlling

most of the policies we deal with today. They're the ones who set the laws which set the other enforcement rules to follow up on those. We need to deal with the technology which we all are here thus I'm happy we all are doing in one way or another. We need to be able to continue the rat race of technological advancement against brute forces trying to be able to break your keys which goes much further further than just your wallet. And last but not least is also the dealing of the the resources funds in whichever way from cash to Bitcoin to trading watermelons with your neighbor.

It really doesn't matter in how you engage with the trading of all of these different utensils. But there needs to be some kind of an incentive for people to engage or to keep engaged. It has had nothing to do with um needing to follow a capitalistic or socialistic system in that regards. uh resources will be needed in both. Our goal I believe as you know a new cyberpunk generation is to properly engage with all of these three. And here comes also my message for you and the people sitting here. You do not need to be only a developer or build technology to help. You do not need to be only a politician to be able to make a

difference. nor do you need to be a VC to be make a a difference. But all of these individuals do can help to contribute to the growth of keeping winning the rat uh rat race against utilitarian governments trying to take away what we fought hard for. Having a designer make a better UI for an existing uh crypto communications application could do a lot more than potentially adding another cryptographic method. While at the same time we already need to start preparing towards the quantum resistant technologies where we can prepare for supercomputers trying to break through in the computers we currently have. As technology advances,

as we advance, so does the counterparty trying to take away our privacy. We have a chance to continue winning the fight as we've been luckily having to be able to do, but that also requires the effort of all of us right here. Now you might ask yourself then how can you help? How can you participate? And how can you create an environment where you can move without necessarily feeling watched the whole time? It starts small. Talk to the people around you. Try to get them to use more privacy friendly tooling. Try to actually start up the debate on why privacy is important for you compared to somebody else. I might have different

reasons than you might have reasons yourself that you care about these things. These things can scale quite rapidly once people get involved. You can organize a small event. You can give a talk like me right here or do it somewhere else. It doesn't always require a fancy lead wall or a nice microphone to be able to share your opinions with other people around you. involve for technical people the nontechnical people into your daily life because the perspective they give you is just as important as the practical ability you give them. Try to lobby with your local lawmakers about not accepting certain regulations if you disagree with them. There's a path for everybody that they can follow and a path for everybody

to continue. Here's a QR code of something you can do right now. There's a new EU regulation that is currently seeking for feedback. The EU regulation starts to try to make the um the keeping of metadata enforced which means that a lot of the applications we use try to make sure you don't have any metadata or automatically a lot of other applications are directly uh just not keeping the metadata for a long time.

This is a very simple thing where you can just leave feedback. The European Union is always looking for feedback from people and probably only takes you a couple of minutes. Now, am I going to stop you to leave five feedback messages or 10? Obviously not. Uh at the same time, there's many more things happening. And if you really are curious into being more engaged on a political social level, this Wednesday there's another vote. Um, excuse me, not a vote. There's another discussion happening regarding the updating of the GDPR, which is a whole box of worms that they're trying to open again and readjust. Uh, I thank you very much for everybody being here. Uh, I would love

your questions both now and afterwards. And, uh, yeah, I hope you enjoyed some really good Czech beers as well. Thank you. Thank you. We have a few minutes for questions if anyone has. Uh thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. I'm I'm going to try to compress them. Um they all have to do with the idea of hiding the hiding.

Um, I have the and you mentioned at one point in the conversation that it's important to judge people by their actions, but at the same time I had the impression that you were advocating for people being able to hide their actions. And so how can one judge people by their actions if their actions are hidden? That's one question. And the other question is if that were the case, what happens to trust in a world where it's no longer possible or it's not exactly possible to judge people by their actions because their actions are hidden. And also the hiding is hidden which means there's a kind of normalization of the hiding. there's a

con. It's no longer like the hiding becomes the the norm. The way that I perceive the hiding hide the hiding thing. Thank you for your nice question. Um I think it's important to differentiate the right to do something as a legal and personal right to be able to uh execute whatever that thing is and the judging aspect which is more of a personal opinion I might have about a person. Now if a person chooses let's say not to share anything with them which is their right that doesn't mean I'll directly trust them but the person has in their own ability to share as they like. Now, if somebody is dishonest, which is a

completely different thing to being able to hide the reality, um that would not let me necessarily trust this person. And if we live in a society where everybody would hide everything, which I think people are incapable of because we love sharing and oversharing things with other people, uh very likely we would find another way to communicate what we're trying to reach with that person. Um, a very simple example of this is, um, I'm not showing everybody my bank account and I'm also hiding the fact that my bank account is there to other people. That does not mean that you don't assume I have a bank account. So there's an underlying ideology where you

have an understanding that I probably do have this thing without the realization that it's actually there or the confirmation on which can be acted upon as well by third parties. Let's push this maybe even a level further. Um if I could not hide the fact that I made a whistleblowing application to an organization there would be an immediate retalitation. Um, and now on the other side, if I would hide the fact that I uh stole money from somebody else, um, we're entering back the conversation of white hat, black hat, being able to use the same tools for both good and bad perspective. Somebody's actions you can

still judge because even though a person might hide a lot of their actions or their behavior, you cannot hide everything either. there's always some kind of an environment where people do things. Um, I'm standing here, you're sitting there, the way you conversate with people and which the topics you bring upon, those are still things you can make a personal judgment on a person if you would like to trust them or not. For me, the biggest differentiator is how the the legal system will apply to hiding the hiding and how they might retaliate if you would do any kind of a hiding because it's very easy to abuse something. Are you really hiding something or is it just in your pocket pants and nobody can see

it? I hope that kind of answered your question and if not we can talk later about this further as well. Um I'm not sure how I am in time but I don't think there's other questions. We still have a few minutes for questions if anyone has any. Yeah. Uh yeah, thanks for the talk. Um you mentioned uh being politically active and political activism. What what gives you the hope that the system can be changed from inside? Because you know I always felt like we need to make the technologies to actually make the nation state obsolete rather than changing it from from inside. I I'm not as

optimistic I guess. Um, yeah. I'm I'm sorry I didn't quite catch that with Dor. Could you rephrase your question specifically, please? Um, what makes you think that we can actually change the system from inside in in the long run? Because the system is never a static system to start with. It's always is changing. Everything is changing as we sit here. There are very little things in this world that are not changing. And by being participating in a system, you're by definition part of the constant changing movement. And thus you have an ability to slightly nudge it towards one way or another. There's a really good book about behavioral economics called nudge that dives deeper

into how very small actions can have quite of a large uh effect on the people in a group. The same when you talk about for example the tipping point mentality from Malcolm Gladwell if I'm not mistaken. Um th this kind of a combination of a nudge and the awareness of a tipping point, it can allow you to provide the right nudge on the right time to try to switch towards an ideology you support in both privacy or completely other worlds in that sense. And a lot of people from the outside might seem that you know it's a let's say um any given activism organization or even a normal nonprofit organization.

It might sometimes seems incredibly complex from the outside, but once you engage with it, often it seems way more simple and your actions can actually contribute way more. I really strongly believe comparing the nudging effect and the tipping point effect can really snowball into actions as long as you can surround yourself with similar minded people who also want to support the tipping point you're trying to create. How exactly you can do that is case by case. um from writing to speaking to doing business to organizing to designing. Um I think there's a lot of different ways you can try to push your nut.

Uh could you build a bridge please between like how do you see cooperation between individual control and centralized control and how do you how how could you build a bridge between these dualities and encryption? So if I understand your question correctly to look at corporations and the duality of individuals regarding encryption. Uh pretty much something like this. Yeah. So I'm I'm going to be quite honest here. I see myself as a conscious capitalist. I don't see corporations as inherently a bad thing as long as the the mission etc works out. Um,

corporations are organizations of people who start working together and suddenly get access to a lot of resources one way or another. Corporations spend a long and impressive timeline in research and developments to both create and upkeep these encryption models and find ways to apply them. I would dare to argue without corporations, which universities are some kind of univers corporation too, we probably would not even have access to PGP the day we know it today that build upon all the encryption models we knew later. Now, you want corporations to help the narrative, but you also don't want them to control the narrative in

there. Thus, being able to lean on these corporations for their resources, which does not necessarily mean to give you a bag of cash, but could just as much be academic or um any kind of templates or other resources they might publish or create or even if they just give a grant to support academic research because it directly benefits their business. I see that as a positive thing. I see people spending money and resources and focusing their corporation effort towards a singular goal that might or might not elevate this ecosystem as a bet with something that I'm don't need to spend my own money on. Now for me the problem starts stepping in when they try

to control this environment of what they create and try to enforce their own rules afterwards compared to the rules that were set at the beginning of the playground. Uh open source definitely helps with that. So at some point you can just fork. Uh it does not necessarily mean that every system needs to be a distributed network which obviously a lot of them can be. Um but at the same time to kind of talk about the devil in the house of privacy. If you look at Meta and their enforcement and uh capitalization on WhatsApp made a huge environmental switch for a lot of people while suddenly my grandmother is using end-to-end encryption systems.

Does that mean that I support meta in their data collection and all the other privacy anti-privacy surveillance capitalism they're following? Not really. Am I very happy that they paid a lot of money to a team creating an end-to-end encryption application? Yes, it sometimes you can, you know, separate certain actions and justify those within your own moral while still being negative towards the general effect this thing might have. And uh in the music industry, you often talk about separate the art from the artist. And it's incredibly important tool. You might not ideologically agree with a person on

their mentality, politics or pure grounds, but the practical example of what they deliver is still there and that can be neutral depending on how it's uh implemented. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's about time and