Hacktivism in Perspective - Jaromil | Web3Privacy Now

[Music] so yeah I I'll talk about activism I will try to wrap up into a historical overview you may agree or not very cultural uh driven uh try to pinpoint some of U uh the passionate causes that has moved us in the past uh 20 years so I'm going back before crypto actually I'm going back to 1980 and then I'll try to give you um an opinion about where we are going what are the challenges for activists and when I'm talking about activists I'm talking about people that are exposing even themselves their privacy their they are risking to obtain something for a higher cause of the community and of the society around them them they are fighting Injustice and yeah I I come up with some examples if you can yes gra George and they should be there somewhere in the white thing but yeah it's your computer right so I will also try to live install some Mal worms on your computer while I talk just to have a glance no you put them there they were there yeah so yeah one uh one thing that I like to introduce is what we do at dine but just very briefly but where we come from cheers um this is like uh quickly like what we do it's it's a lot of different things and and we have fun mixing them so we use art a lot as as a communication medium uh designers engaged with economists with programmers we are hackers we like to hack ourself also in our beliefs and you know cross boundaries so privacy was always a very big U topic for us we come also many of us come from the south Italian networks many of us have been involved in Grassroots anti-mafia movements in Sicily so we know that privacy is very important when you have a mafosi tracking you down your face on the street when you have like a government like the ones we had in Italy in the last 20 years then you need privacy really um one thing that I focus on myself my colleagues in the past uh 10 years is the sovereignty on algorithms it was mentioned by some people on the stage already it's important that people understand the algorithms that are governing their Digital Life this is a basic right I will Define it natural or civil it's like democracy we have to decide on our laws we have a democratic process algorithms are low as code was low Le already declared long ago so we need to have a say about it so as a developer I like to say that when we are participating in a software we are all participants and there are bright examples of this software uh in crypto there are many because we have like Improvement proposals this is a great practice that Bitcoin started and everyone picked up uh you have projects like Tor that have like a discussion about what is going to be changed and so on and so forth so algorithmic sovereignty is a very important trait in a software I'm over open source of course it should be open if if it's not open source you should not run it on your computer but then the next question will be like how far are the developers to listen to my concerns another thing that it's very dear to us is like recycle infrastructure and this is I tell you like what counts for the foundation for the dinor foundation we don't want to have new hardware we like to recycle Hardware we have like a file system encryption software that works still on 386 computers on Linux tomb we we have like all sorts of diabolic was like recycling Xbox One game consoles to do your own radio on the internet uh the game industry is producing so much waste so much Hardware we should appropriate it and recycle it and we believe in this the third thing is like design for a distributed process so in short um yeah be interdisciplinary really Tross your boundaries so this is what we are about we are around since 20 years so of course we couldn't miss the worldwide sensation we are all here for so we were in for the lules and uh yeah it became also like quite some some uh some Community Society and also sustainability Dimension so enough with the introduction what I want to propose you is a uh historical perspective that goes beyond ourself as eckers from dorg uh it touches into people from the this as a laser right no but it's not visible but anyway this thing from the 80s which is called the G project what inspired Richard stalman the new project is now 40 years old the the free software Movement we owe a lot from this like the the Prototype era is where it started sort of aesthetically so the 80s we had craftwork music we had 60s and 70s counterculture very important to remember about this counterculture which kept on through today we are in a you know uh I I'm not sure about legal status but yeah tolerated legalized but squat you know we come from many of us from squatted uh places so uh counterculture means to find a space where is not given in society and grab it the Golden Era back in 80s and 93 is when really the the G project started but also when Neuromancer was published when the Golden Age of video games commodor Atari Blade Runner was was was published so this sort of aesthetic Chandler goes into cyberp Punk started taking place misguided secret Services uh we all started to know about gladio here in Italy about sevil we knew that the system was not telling the truth was like Miss chus then we add the www the worldwide web so we had the first internet I connected to Internet uh in 94 with a modem before there were bbs's so a big change like realtime communication online mainstream era these all went mainstream Financial systems started using cybernetic systems 9399 Time Magazine l m man very nice uh Johnny mneumonic web population explosed Microsoft Windows become the status quo as it is still today the most used operating system in the world on PC Computers then we had the Millennium era 220 I don't mention here the was a flash crash so first account of a of a crash on the financial system that we don't know uh uh about or why why it happened then we had like the George Bush era 911 attacks like a total disaster the Holocaust of privacy all over the world the Patriot Act DRM developed and hacked and developed and hacked and still like you know digital restrictions Management Systems uh so yeah like the TPM started Paladium if you ever heard about people wanted to tell us what to run on our computers so fundamental betrayal of Liberties like I bite no strings attached why should you tell me what to run on it so Google come in Web 2.0 Shields all over spam bot Nets viruses RFID started taking place Global surveillance everywhere and data mining started to be a real a real business so where we are now the crypto era is probably almost finished we are entering probably a new era but it's started around the 2010 2011 is not a coincidence that two projects really are uh reaching a que point I will talk about in this era and it's by now pervasive computer human rights prevarications everywhere just like painted with you know washed into a nice Web 2.0 uh uh packaging but basically it's a human right prevarication everything that is happening on social networks ethical ing takes place into cyber cyber security Advanced cryptography so the field of cryptography and Mathematics attracted me like very much this was the year I started work as an applied cryptographer became very very strong we had enormous advances if you think like we were stuck at symmetric key defy Helman and now we have like zero knowledge proof and homomorphic encryption behind the door Bitcoin started Wikileaks very two important project Q projects and a massive Exodus from institutions to networks what e and moglin used to call the the this intermediation the lack we finally realized that institutions centralized institution are not to be trusted so we are shifting towards an ethic and a governance that is driven by networks so these are the images of this like excurses we started with the cyberp punk the the RPG game I don't know whom you you of you played it also like the Cyber Punk on Time Magazine back in 7s say virtual sex smart drugs and synthetic rock and roll they were like projecting the the the counterculture into the Cyber Dimension with all these vies you know these are Puritan ists anyway who reads the time NOS tads aim Bay fundamental uh book for many of us like also here in Rome where we are like temporaneous autonomous zones we had in Italy like many illustrators that were really really dear to all the decoder generation networking there is a beautiful book if you want to know about what happened in Italy in those days by taana batelli that you can download of course it's for free and then we have overall the ethics that donara one of the most important cyber feminists there are many out there teach taught us like do not refuse Technologies just like be a hybrid accept it and hybrid it because this is what feminism has done all these years and all these ages to survive also you know into the precarity prevarication of society so two main tracks spawned of activism from this sort of of of history and historical track one you can recognize some symbols you know we had the lules of anonymous we had like opsc we had like hacks that were huge people really counterattacked The Establishment they say your systems do not work even kids can break it you know we we had judges that were really embarrassed because you know you have like a 16y years old kid getting into a system that has like 10 billions in cyber security and cops all over watching the system and a 16-year-old can make a hole into it and the judge is told oh now you should send a 16-year-old to jail like how about these people paid Millions to keep this system secure like what are they doing like Boomers or what I don't know I mean the new generation sees you know like the sort of old boomer generation as utterly stupid maybe they're not wrong about this so we had this sort of new Punk wave and in my opinion the anonymous was the new Punk and now it's it's old like many of us became like older I was even too old for anonymous they were punk I can tell you for one reason if you were above 30 years old they didn't believe in you well done kids never it's a youth movement you know so they were like the real punks there and also there was another track of this activism there are two sides of the same medal is the ethical the ethical movement that Richard stolman and Eben moglin created that now just like a week ago but actually this year is 40 years old incredibly important Ean moglin often forgotten was a lawyer Richard stalman at the MIT as a programmer as a developer a very talented one they understood that it's ethical for software that uh that that someone can run for any purpose this software no strings attached can study it and adapt it to his or her own needs so also translation also little modifications redistributed and distribute modifications can you do business with this yes if you don't know how you're missing the train because redot was acquired by IBM for 32 whopping billions in 2019 so this is a billionair business as well but it doesn't matter uh how much money now we are in crypto like we have a lot of money flowing through it what matters is the ethics of the system because this is the point of all my talk today behind every corner in every little town in the south of Italy in the south of Africa in the south of or in the North in eses countries in the middle of India anywhere you go like in no matter how Rural and and peripherical it is there may be a genius that needs freedom and tools to develop herself or himself and we need to grant us as Humanity this this opportunity this possibility this is really openness so I think this was the ethic and it's not a chance not a coincidence that this man met this man this was uh back then at the at the at the um in the Ecuador embassy in London holding photo of another man that is risky risked his life uh uh all these people and more risked their life and actually became Martyrs as well because they really believed that the system didn't work and from inside took a step that is very dangerous for them but it's an ethical step like really trying to change the system somehow they managed you know like they they even like moved Parts political parts of the systems towards their own their own way like Julian Sange at the time of the cables before the cables at the release of the of the helicopter shot shooting was actually awarded a CIA prize for integrity and intelligence so this is not like a war to the system but it's also a dialogue to the certain system and the system sometimes is listening what happened back then in 2011 this happened uh in financial terms it was like 2000 January 2011 week financial blockade came helicopter shot all over the world we had it everywhere in the Netherlands in Italy we are like this helicopter from the US army shooting writers journalists in the streets of Baghdad so when this was released was a big big thing and wikle started having a lot of inflow of donations all over the world this was a really big release on which some of the early and and good members of WikiLeaks also uh converged the Forbes article about Bitcoin came out on 9 of May 2011 in the middle of this you see the quantity the volume of transactions growing and and also the the value of Bitcoin growing because Wikki was cut from Visa Master Card from receiving donations without a court order the system show his pH there was no court order no legal process some politicians at that time the Republican Party said oh these are enemies of the state we must proceed by force cut off the pipes from the project at that point many many hackers realized okay it's the time to switch because we don't believe into this system anymore can we do it can we not we switched so wik started accepting Bitcoin donations the the Bitcoin was popularized also by people in the US that understood they want to jump on the train CIA at that time invited many of us Bitcoin developers Bitcoin core developers at that time into a conference back in in in San San Diego to to talk you know some people even went there like the system understood this was happening first Bitcoin conference in Prague it was November 201 we had major parlamentar the first Swedish parlamentar is from the pirate party we had all the attention from you know the new generations then Bitcoin theft the first one the big one from Bitcoin 43,000 Bitcoins stolen then second Bitcoin conference London September 2012 I met amazing people there from there on we had basically the shields fluing the wall Community like from there on there was no not any other Bitcoin conference I could go and I could recognize the original people they were all marketing people completely unrelated flooding the financial space because they were Financial operators that's all right it happens but what happened is that wiy has kicked the Hornet's Nest these are satous word his last message on the Bitcoin forum and the Swarm is headed towards us Satoshi disappeared after this message he understood or she or them or they understood that this was really happening and didn't want it to hold the heat I think it was wise because they left an empty Throne on which we are all somehow sitting and it's a very good attitude to not take also like the lead of this and yeah PC word could the weekly Scandal lead to new virtual currency the the totally Visionary journalist like the tend December 2010 yes it did so every time you look into an abis the abis looks into you theder nich that's what happened so we had one of the first blocks of the Bitcoin blockchain inscribed by Dan Kaminsky I like to remember him unfortunately left us some years ago and yeah he just inscribed the ASI portrait of Len Sassaman the author of the first Mix Master of emails and uh yeah also aski Bernan at that time was a chief of the central bank so we had uh we have this as if you look into uh into the very first uh blocks of Bitcoin you will find this inscribed thing and on the other side of the Spectrum in the business uh side uh the business people started understanding that open source ethics is actually to be digged it's a good way to go Google made a fortune Facebook made a fortune forun with that because you can tell you know about their mission I don't share their mission but they weigh the work internally or at least they started building a corporate culture it was completely predating the hacker culture that we have because they know that openness transparency passion curiosity sharing it was the way to go and now they have offices in which people don't do war between desks but actually collaborate much more and you know there is a sort of dimension also we have like this new phenomenon also in business of paresia you know sometimes someone will just say everything that happens and will go and leak something whether it is for a leaking or for you know like starting to to to leak out some Secrets because there is no security through obscurity and we know even if we work into a big company that if the big company makes Secrets out of its known vulnerabilities someone anywhere in a little town some sometimes probably a 16 years old kid not to be blamed for it will find that hole and will get through it so there's no security through obscurity you cannot hide and be secure because we are many looking at these things and rough consensus a running code also sort of revolution in governance of companies which today is branded as agile Agile development is great you make your own way through it I mean we work at D through agile very well so what happened is that we forked we forked everywhere we just like became the status quo right now and I think it's important to see it because crypto is just another phenomenon of this like we actually took cover the whole financial world and it doesn't matter if it's a bare Market or not it matters that we provide a system that banks are were the only one providings before and now people do not need those Banks to write a number into a database they they can hold their value this is huge so banks are becoming only kyc operators AML operators they are changing completely their role so this is the real thing we cannot go back from eventually they will try to emit you know their own crypto money but then the decentralized architecture will step in so what are the next challenges and I conclude with a hint what I think we have in front as a fight for us as activist again because we must be ready to fight with our own ways I go back to one experience that has really like uh is is very dear to me it was my entry into the city of Amsterdam where I live it was the ASI squatted social Center it was 2005 this was yava Strat in the host of Amsterdam and we squatted abandoned places and we built an internet cafe inside so we had shifts we didn't leave we also squatted a lot lot of other places for living ourself we had fantastic houses but this we squatted for the populace and we had like this was like the most migrant place in Amsterdam we had people walking in like can I print this can I use the computer we had terminals in Arabic with other kind of uh uh uh you know uh alphabets we had access to email and basic access to Printing and email no alcohol we served some tea we tried to be friendly to everyone and we run shifts into this place we squatted it we had people trying to evict us as you see we know how to sold their metal bars we got gigs into also like the physical hacking and so we resisted a lot like the aski was an experienced 10 years old what was the point of the aski internet was not free at that time you had to pay for it you had to give your ID for it many people had struggles not everyone had internet everywhere so we thought that internet was a right before the UN had to declare it we knew it so we squatted for it and we we gave it to people and this was uh because we believe that people really need access to what is happening around them also in the digital space and they need to learn more about these tools so I'm getting to my point here the other side of the industry does something else to us they just want us to like they just want us to express our desires our needs to profile us they extract things from us but they don't let us understand how they do it what they do with it it's completely proprietary stack and soon is coming an AI to guide it and they're entering the same verticals where we are the financial sector will use AIS to establish the credit of people the insurance sector will use AI to establish the liability of an insurance so these sort of Technologies are entering completely like all verticals and what they do is they try to have machines understand people faster than we understand machines so I get to my fundamental question which I think an activist point is for tomorrow is what are we developing for for machines to understand humans or for humans to understand machines many people said it on this stage already I heard Kiran saying it I heard Elanor saying it education is important that people understand what machines do is important and the next fight will be between deterministic systems what we are building with crypto and non-deterministic systems what they are building with AI because there is no way you can actually hold accountable an AI for what is doing and I can assure you AIS will commit crimes thank [Applause] you [Music]