Women in Privacy panel x Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress

my name is Jana and I'm working for nim nim as mvpn and I hope you're already using it after Harris and Chelsea's talk this morning but today and now on the stage I'm not going to present explicitly name but the project which is called women in privacy so what is yay thanks give a turn of Applause because we are very thank you we are very young project we just started our activity a couple of months ago and our mission is to empower women and give them tools and knowledge to uh navigate easily and with confidence in digital spaces in the in the decentralized spaces we also want to give more help to women in the vulnerable uh communities that really need our help and also we want to create more platforms for for women to share their expertise and to speak up about the key issues in the tech industry this is what we are going to do today and this was the official press kit presentation of women in privacy how we uh really like to talk about with ourselves we are just a very techy Sisterhood and we just want to bring a little bit more of feminine energy into this very very serious Tech indust industry and we have already had uh like comments in Twitter saying yeah uh guys why are there only women why is women only group aren't men allowed do you hate men and we were like no we don't hate men we do not compete with men we do not fear men in fact we really love men and Ju Just for for for well I'm single if someone's interested thank you so much yeah so basically we will want to bring a little bit more fun and feminine energy into this industry and we really want to talk about very serious issues and the topic of our panel today is privacy with dog back doors or without and I welcome to the stage my uh ladies and we will talk the the stocky topic uh from the back from the front we will talk all about it from different perspectives different levels from different expertise ladies please come up [Applause] woo okay so what I would like us to start today with is um each of us will introduce herself really shortly to give the background what what we do what our expertise is and what is our stand on privacy with back doors or without so I uh as employee of name and as a representative I say that privacy cannot exist with back doors do you agree do you agree guys well we say it cannot exist with back doors because those back doors will be always exploited either by the bad guys or by the good guys because those good guys can introduce some something like state sponsored surveillance and this is something that we really really hate now I will give the word to our ladies let's start who spk tell us what you do and what's your point uh hi my name is Park uh I'm the CEO of radiant Commons we're an advocacy organization that is looking to scale the uh penumbra blockchain right now um my stance on back doors is that if you build a system against only perpetration you're never building for users so you should never build a system with back doors in mind because uh the in if the aim of your system is to actually be useful then that should be your core Focus okay thank you hello everyone my name is fatim thanks for having us for this panel and thank you all for being here uh I'm a lawyer qualified in Switzerland um and I work right now with the anoma foundation um and on the question question of with or without back doors um I mean obviously without I think for same reason and we're going to talk more about it but privacy even without back doors has a lot of vulnerabilities um and there are other ways to attack privacy um so there are already kind of some back doors because of this and adding more makes no sense thank you so much hello uh I'm to Tu Alam I'm an associate professor of political science and director of cyber space research at Fen arbach University in stanbul I'm in I have a white research uh interest but one of them is cyber space governance and uh cyber norms and uh with regard to the question that we are dealing today uh of course this debate on uh privacy with or without back doors centers on the main question of political science basically the balance between the U individual freedoms and National Security so States and governments around the world are pressuring the companies to enable backd door access to um to enable more effective uh investigation criminal investigations uh but uh of course one of the recent uh uh incidence was between I think a few months in April it was between europol and uh WhatsApp and signal europol was insisting on uh getting access to encrypted Communications and a similar uh debate uh occurred in United States between Apple and FBA FBI uh but I think I agree with my uh colleagues here uh providing uh back towards will uh enable authoritarian drift that we are seeing in the world today so there is a democratic backsliding going on in the world like the global Freedom has been declined for the 17 consecutive years and so the internet freedoms are declined for the 14th consecutive years so providing factors will provide it uh governments um more power to infringe on the personal rights uh of uh individuals and this is very important especially in hybrid regimes uh such as in turkey or uh authoritarian regime so I also argue privacy of course without back doors thank you hi I'm Nelly I'm head of adoption at a exac and I also collaborate with Ana Ana is the European National Agency for uh for cyber security I work work with them as an observer to help advise on how their cyber security campaigns can better reach uh small and medium Enterprises uh in Europe and regarding uh bors something that I want to a little bring a little different uh perspective is factors of course without but bors are only one part of the creation today they're um I've been looking a lot about data uh brokers and how actually they don't need back doors they are operating within legal Frameworks and something that I would like to share today it's about my takes on the um data Brokers uh and also from the point of collaborating with policy makers I know it's not always easy but we definitely need to work together to bring uh privacy where it's most needed thank you hi my name is Costa and I'm a core member of at it worm a decentralized and chancellorship resistant privacy preserving communication and St system uh my background is in anthropology and low so how the how anthropology shapes the how Human Society shapes the law and the legal systems around us and basing on what you just said all of you I think that the question is back to Earth but there is always going to be a human component component so as long as there is a human component and there is therefore a single point of failure because you can have the most privacy preserving project but if the person developing it is a human being and the person who interacting with that is a human being or like Roger say no I think it was Adam from Brink say before there is always going to be a human component that is going to make privacy failing so the more we try the more we try to make it perfect and we try to remove the back doors the better but it's never going to be 100% safe thank you costan thank you so much and I have already a question for you you as an anthropologist why do you think surveillance is happening and also question to Tuba why do you think governments are so afraid of privacy do you want to go first I go first okay thank you for the question that's super interesting so why do states hate privacy and they're trying to surveil us um bottom line the spoiler is that they need that to survive they need that to control people and uh to build on the controlling of people they have people working people in the states and even if you are in the state but you're never op in to be under the state you're still bound by the wars even if I'm not American I'm From Italy as you can see from my accent um still I am bounded by us Imperial because it has so much control and so much Rich over over Italy over Europe that in a way I'm bounded by that and by so I'm also subject to the anti-privacy that the US is doing when they say that nobody can use tornado cash for example like nobody people know that like a few years before BMP Paras um I think Goldman Sachs and others they also did money laundering for sanctioned countries but yeah they pay a fine they didn't go to jail um people can still interact with those Banks but they targeted specifically crypto projects uh blender a tornado cash and so on so why because the existence of this project transcends boundaries transcend jurisdictions it is something that everything on the internet is not subject to you know like you cross the border between Italy and Switzerland and you're subject to different law they can be harmonized um there can be extradition rules but still you're bounded by the rules of the countries that we physically in when you are online that happens in a centralized way so if you do something on Amazon for example then the government can tell Amazon to shut you down but if you do something on um borderless and um permissionless system then the government cannot shut you down they they have no control over you and that is super scary because it means that you're not operating within the rules of the of the country that you belong to or that your country belongs to like in the case of Italy to the us and that is why because it's dangerous for them it threatens them the very existence of the Monopoly of violence of the state is threatened by this Freedom that we are trying to build here thank you so much valid point tuba why do you think that governments are afraid of privacy I mean because governments want to control I think that's why they are afraid of privacy and uh uh I would like to say a few things about you know how this privacy or the right to privacy in the digital age have uh appeared on the global agenda uh it was back in 2013 uh when any it came to the agenda with the Edward snowden's Revelations about uh massive uh surveillance activities of uh five ice Alliance so uh which included countries like United States UK Canada Australia and New Zealand so one of the Striking features or revelation of Snowden was that German uh Chancellor Angela Amel and Brazil's president dma Rusev's personal Communications was was uh under control or was followed so that's why uh Brazil and uh Germany have uh played the leading role in bringing this privacy topic to the global uh agenda so the United Nations uh in 2013 the first resolution on um protecting uh privacy in the digital age have been accepted and then this is followed by two more resolutions and the special repor has been appointed to um to uh make this agenda more prominent and to urge the states when they engage in conter uh terrorism uh activities to pay attention to the Privacy another implication was the adoption of uh general adoption of data protection laws um the most comprehensive one is of course the European Union's general data uh protection regulation which uh becomes like a model for all the global South countries so for instance Brazil has adopted a very similar uh data protection law but on the other hand there are also now uh data localization laws which are very trendy among the global South countries as well as in the European Union countries um so I think um data localization the states are uh putting um rules that are limiting the uh crossborder flow of of data and they are require iring the data to remain in the uh Sovereign borders of a nation state so this uh together with the growing uh Tech uh competition between uh China and the United States um I think creating a risk of fragmentation and um what's is called like Splinter internet and maybe uh web 3 may also provide you know with the censorship res consistent uh features it can maybe also produce a solution for this risk right thank you so much can I add something of course go ahead um I'm not sure if governments are actually afraid of privacy um they there are some that do not want privacy for sure because they want to control and these are like the more fascist authoritarian type of governments that are not necessarily excluding the Western governments but they want to know what you're doing so that they can retain power and control over you but then there is also um another aspect that I want to bring into the conversation is that privacy is also generally protected in many constitutions and actually like more than like 150 constitutions around the world there's a right to privacy um usually like cops cannot just enter your home they need a warrant these are all like very established kind of principles and rules um but then somehow Financial privacy is another category and doesn't abide by the same like exception and protection that like other spheres of Life have thank you I totally agree with this as well yeah and then I also have a different question to you Fatima because you have experience in crypto law and privacy so what do you think are the pros and cons of censorship if any pros um pros and cons of censorship so yeah well of course in the context of uh privacy of uh protecting the Privacy um okay so I I think censorship I give a talk actually in Berlin in eth Berlin about this I think censorship is important in general in life because we don't want to receive all of the informations that are out there so we need to basically it's curation we need to Cate and censor what we receive and also what we give to the world like I'm censoring myself now or I could just like lie on the floor and like have like say like you know say and like all of the other things but I am not and um so like censorship in the sense of curation I think is very important but then like where do we draw the line like when the censorship becomes a problem and I think it's when um like we're excluding for instance like with sanctions we're excluding like Iranians or like a whole population based on some just political agenda Without Really any form of at least for me like ethical like reasons that would justify it and I think these type of censorships are bad but bottom line is like for the technology we're building I think it's important to be able to decide what we want to be exposed to and like what we want to like who we want to transact with and not um but that does not mean that we have to have one single like decision in governance for the entire space it's very important to um have various like governance models that CI at the same time thank you so much I agree with you and I have a question to Nelly because Nelly has expertise with data Brokers and I would like to know how the companies that are collecting the data and selling it how do they play in the context of the back doors all right that that's exactly the point so they don't need back doors to get um into our privacy into our personal identifiable uh information so data bro Brokers they are like the middleman of uh surveillance capitalism is a 4 billion industry that is just simply connecting data Supply with data demand so they are also kind of a fundamental part of the we to business model around data and uh the problem is that these companies they have access to all this uh information and at first you know it was about uh knowing getting this data to create the most accurate profiles of who you are how is your behavior How likely are you are you to buy or engage in a certain product or service but now the problem is that they are having more access to a sensitive information it's not just about your purchasing behaviors is health records for example if you have um being uh if you have like um gambling problems of if you are part of uh domestic abuse so these are getting our profiles this is getting creepier and creepier for example let me give you an example in 2011 uh one a very famous data uh data rocker um epsilen data management they had a fine of uh 140 million for facilitating data that led to to uh facilitating scams for the elderly so this is kind of the problem that uh they don't need bors to you know uh successfully give this information for Bad actors and I think that's really really the problem and in case of the ER early I feel deeply connected because two years ago I was in a police station uh in France because I lost my asper you know I wanted to report that and I was there waiting with other people like waiting to report a crime when this old guy arrived like 70 years old showing his phone asking for the people should I open this email is this dangerous and I like holy you know like this guy was totally vulnerable and the police can not have the the time to respond to these kind of requests and you know they were waiting for people to actually report this crime so that broke my heart but at the same at the same time makes me very happy being a part of a community that we're doing something you know to solve this and I do think that our uh the best asset that we have is right here right now is everyone of us all our ideas our protocols our products our services you know we can use this to bring privacy where it's most needed and together as a community we can create this digitally furless Society here here thank you so much yeah yeah I I want to add to that because I I think that there's privacy has kind of become like a four-letter word right it's like you you hear privacy and you kind of think of it as like a negative word maybe there's criminals participating in and something like that there's a there's a a bunch of better words that can be used to describe really what it is that people want which is data protection and consent to the use of your data and if we're building software for building um uh user experiences that allow people to consent to how their data is used then we're building technology that gives people agency to decide how it is that the information they put out there can be utilized by data Brokers or anything like that so really the biggest issue with web 2 that we've had up to this point is that there this hasn't been built into any of the software W that people interact with um up front right it's you just kind of put it out there you put things on Facebook you don't really think about whether or not it's going to be a public you're going to put it on Instagram on your Twitter like and historically this has been the continuous problem with every like social media platform that's been built or um with health records or anything like these things like they they get put out and they're they're public first and then you have to choose to opt into privacy what web 3 should be giving you and that this is really where our Paradigm should be shifting is it should not be a choice as to whether or not you want to be private it should be a choice as to whether or not you want to be public and that's where the big shift should be um and there's a big shift actually happening in the in the legal side of things it's because right now like surveillance capitalism and everything you mentioned is made possible because data is seen just as a good and this good like can be bought and sold and like once it's not it's outside of your sphere of control it's kind of gone so European Union is trying to change this like there's the right to be forgotten which is actually another topic but contentious point with blockchains where it cannot necessarily be enforced um and I forgot my points oh yes the legal sh legal shift so basically there there are debates right now happening and mainly in Switzerland and they are pushed by the pirate party but it's about um making data not a good that you can own or sell but part of your identity and your integrity so the same way physical Integrity is protected so no one can come and like hit you and you shouldn't at least and and like There are rules and laws around this no one can come and like talk about you there are also rules that protect your mental Integrity there should be rules that protect our data Integrity so as as soon as there's this shift where data becomes part of us like we can maybe like rent it out but we can also like decide all of a sudden that no we want to like like retrieve our consent and people would have to respect this so I think that in order for all of this Tech the way like we're discussing for it to work we also need to to have a cultural discussion and push for kind of this change in in laws and um to finish um like the Swiss government like the there's multiple constitutions in Switzerland there's the main Swiss Federal Constitution and then each state or con has its own Constitution and some of the already adopted this data being part of your integrity um but then on the federal level they refus because they said that it is already implied but nonetheless this is a conversation we should be having can I ask a question to F because to implement that I guess you have three main actors you have all the state apparatus um you have people like you that want that to happen but then you have AWS you have Google you have all those data giants that are going to be so against that uh because they literally business model is to explode your data so how do you see that coming to life and uh winning over the lobbing and the resistance that those Giants are going to put to that I think it depends on the country so there are like places like the US where private lobbying is very strong and this may be harder CU like the whole capitalistic system depends a lot on on this access to data um but then like in Europe I think it's a good example or like in other countries where um I think it's it's less they are less powerful and they can like I think privacy is also more understood and accepted as something normal um but I I just think we should do the work I mean we shouldn't be afraid of of this big Tech and they will always find a way to monetize something like I'm not worried about them um if I can reat that um because I think you're right in a previous life I make a disclaimer I used to work for Oracle one of those bad evil players and when gdpr came out Oracle monetized that like it was like oh that's cool so we can like even sell like more data controlling things we just like brand them as gdpr compliant and most of the people most of the companies especially the smaller one didn't had time to read about gdpr to analyze it or to nothing so Oracle what was doing was bullying them into buying their privacy preserving gdpr compliance softwares um so that was still not true Freedom it was like some sort of like fake bullying kind of thing and I'm pretty sure that the same is happening um um there's another angle we can take which is National Security um to push the same argument basically if um our data is more protected than the government like Citizen and like its own data is also more protected in case there is any form of like Mass Attack or like any form of big conflict then uh because they have already these laws in place and these systems in place then they're going to be also more resilient thank you so much guys we are almost out of time but I have one last killer question so what would you answer if they ask you but what if bad people use your product Park go this is a great question and I'm sure everyone is very excited to answer this question um the truth is um you have to the one of one of the best models that you can take for making sure that your software is used by the right people is by making sure that they are your first users right uh you take a straight path towards legitimacy by uh the most the most important currency is legitimacy so um building software that can be used by anyone but that is um seeking uh legitimacy upfront should take the Journey of focusing on being legitimate upfront and how you do that is by focusing on the users that you want to reflect your legitimacy so um while people can say yeah like there could be bad actors and uh you know like you can say the same thing about a hammer right if you are holding a hammer in your hands uh I can choose to hammer in a nail I could also choose to use it for other things and we're not going to get rid of hammers because some people could use hammers in really bad ways so that's what I would kind of say there thank you smart answer FAA what would you say I'm just going to say what about all the good people yes exactly what about all the good people who need that tuba what would you answer I think uh I would like to highlight the problems associated with this uh dual used uh products like uh Global like spyware uh which is related also to surveillance uh this uh Global spyware industry is not regulated at all and uh it creates um you know uh an opportunity for the authoritarian governments to expand uh their uh intrusion and repression to transpor uh Aras for instance one of the most well-known incidents maybe was the Jamal kashik Kos we call kashik but Jamal Kos Saudi uh Arabian journalist who was killed in Istanbul in 2018 in the Saudi conate uh and the investigation done by the Turkish authorities has shown that the Saudi government has uh infiltrated the telephone of the journalist and uh that's why engage in this incident but also this is not limited only with the authoritarian governments yes United Arab Emirates uh and China in the ugur case is doing it but also even the democratic governments such as Hungary Greece Portugal Spain are also using this spyware to infiltrate to political opposition um so what I would say uh in the beginning of my uh talk I was underlining that you know the mass survellance conducted by the major Powers but today this unregulated Industrial provides opportunity to any state to expand their surveillance and also uh and also um engage in this uh threat against life and Liberty of individuals uh across the borders so I would like to call for more regulation in the area of uh spy wear and suran Tech thank you Nelly okay so I'm going to share here a secret SAU that I prove um it's been um very successful when dealing with um creating software and educational campaigns about privacy so I've been uh practicing um sdt so self um determination Theory which stands that uh in order to convince a human to do something you need to fulfill three basic needs autonomy compet uh competence and relatedness so if you apply this to educational campaigns of products you need to make the people uh they need to that they are in control of what's going on that they have the skills to deal with it and also that they can relate to the problem uh the problem that you're solving so we apply this Theory to an educational campaign to a web to audience explaining web uh web 3 also explaining data privacy and how confidential Computing um can help solve this problem and in the end we give a practical example of how to use a product to um to monetize your email address we're keeping uh privacy and it was pretty successful and we have 1.3 million people uh completing the class how many of them were bad actors I can't I don't know have access to that information okay it's just a joke Costanza what what if bad people use the Privacy preserving tools before um in the talk before I don't know how many people were here um Roger say that good people will use store good people will use the software bad people will also use the software but the the law enforcement the people are supposed to make us safe they have way more tools at their disposal than we have so we need to be able to make sure that we are empowered that the people that have no freedoms are in power the people that are more vulnerable um are empowered it's not can I make an analogy we get out of year in the real world we go to a bank there is a robbery and the robber escape and an ambulance comes and takes all the HED people to the hospital now what do we do we do not build highways and infrastructures because bad people can use them or we build infrastructure and then we try to C the bad people because that's the same I think yes thank you and maybe I will also answer this question because I get asked it very often when I present Nim so basically what I want now to answer if people ask me what if bad people use Nim I would say I would just site Phil Zimmerman who said that if privacy remains outlawed Only The Outlaws will have the Privacy thank you so much for listening to us thank you so and the last note guys please support our initiative ladies who want to join us we're here for you approach us guys who want to talk about privacy also reach out to us because we are open to all kinds of communication if you want to talk about privacy with me personally you'll find me in Bumble thank you thank you