Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / Privacy's Defender🛡️Cindy Cohn INTERVIEW

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Privacy's Defender🛡️Cindy Cohn INTERVIEW · The Paul Barron Crypto Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Let's get into Privacy's Defender today. It does matter because
0:03
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things happening in blockchain. We'll break
0:05
Speaker 1: it all down for you. I've got a special guest,
0:07
Speaker 1: let's just jump right into it. I do want to
0:08
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0:12
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Speaker 1: get some discounts to get going here, I want to
0:37
Speaker 1: showcase a book which is Privacy's Defender. This, of course
0:41
Speaker 1: is done by Cindy Cohene, who is the executive director
0:44
Speaker 1: over at the EFF and it's her thirty eight fere
0:47
Speaker 1: year fight against digital surveillance. We're going to talk a
0:50
Speaker 1: little bit about that, but why this is so important
0:52
Speaker 1: around crypto. Before we bring her in, I want to
0:55
Speaker 1: play a clip where she was on the John Stewart
0:57
Speaker 1: Show talking about this take a look.
1:00
Speaker 2: We need better options and people are developing them. You know,
1:03
Speaker 2: it's not very big yet, but it's a decentralized place
1:06
Speaker 2: where people can build safe communities for themselves. I think
1:10
Speaker 2: that when you pick censorship as your strategy, you are
1:14
Speaker 2: dealing with no.
1:15
Speaker 3: That's what you want to do.
1:16
Speaker 2: You want to create liability for the company based on
1:19
Speaker 2: things that people say to each other on the network.
1:21
Speaker 2: And what you're doing is you're saying you should make
1:23
Speaker 2: sure that those people can't speak on your network because
1:25
Speaker 2: they're causing harm.
1:27
Speaker 3: I mean, they are libel laws, They're a slander.
1:29
Speaker 1: Isn't that censorship?
1:31
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you can always sue the people who
1:33
Speaker 2: are harming you on the platforms. The question is secondary liability.
1:37
Speaker 2: I just want people to be able to leave. I
1:38
Speaker 2: think that the censorship strategy feels really easy, and I
1:42
Speaker 2: worry it's going to backfire.
1:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I understand.
1:45
Speaker 1: I think we define censorship slightly differently.
1:48
Speaker 3: We might. Social media to me is like secondhand smoke.
1:51
Speaker 2: Sometimes the answer isn't to try to take a dictator
1:54
Speaker 2: and make them a better dictator. The answer is to
1:56
Speaker 2: get rid of the dictators and make them less important.
2:01
Speaker 1: All right, So I like what she had to say.
2:02
Speaker 1: We asked her on the show, and I want to
2:05
Speaker 1: welcome her in Sydney Cone. How are you?
2:07
Speaker 3: I'm well, thank you so much. That was fun.
2:09
Speaker 1: Do you you got a chance to go head to
2:11
Speaker 1: head with John? And first of all, did he really
2:14
Speaker 1: understand the solution you were trying to present? You think?
2:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I think by the time we got to
2:20
Speaker 2: the end, and honestly, the conversation continued after the cameras
2:24
Speaker 2: stopped rolling, and I think at the end he understood
2:27
Speaker 2: what I was talking about. I just think that there's
2:29
Speaker 2: an effort to try to deal with some of the
2:32
Speaker 2: harms that are happening online that has a very grooved path,
2:36
Speaker 2: and whenever you're trying to convince people that that's not
2:40
Speaker 2: the right path, they think that you don't care about
2:42
Speaker 2: harms at all. So I had to really work hard
2:46
Speaker 2: to get him to recognize that, like, the answer that
2:50
Speaker 2: I think is better for harms is actually significantly more
2:55
Speaker 2: dangerous for the big companies than the one that they're embracing.
2:58
Speaker 3: And it took a while to get him there.
3:00
Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day, what he
3:02
Speaker 2: really wanted was transparency. He's not comfortable with the way
3:06
Speaker 2: that some of the social media algorithms are really it's
3:09
Speaker 2: really hard to see how they're working, and.
3:14
Speaker 3: I think that's fair.
3:15
Speaker 2: I mean, the FF is we're very supportive of more
3:17
Speaker 2: transparency around these kinds of things, and so we found
3:22
Speaker 2: some common ground there. But you know, the stories about
3:27
Speaker 2: the bad things happening to people online are are heart wrenching,
3:31
Speaker 2: and I have a lot of sympathy for people who
3:33
Speaker 2: want to do something. It's just that between recognizing the
3:36
Speaker 2: harm and actually doing something like that. The devil's in
3:39
Speaker 2: those details and that's where I live. That's where eff lives.
3:43
Speaker 2: It's not what we do in response to.
3:45
Speaker 1: It, because I think he kind of came back at
3:46
Speaker 1: you on this, and that is kind of the KYC element.
3:49
Speaker 1: Someone having to show who they are, whether it's through
3:52
Speaker 1: a government ID or something of that nature. Would you
3:56
Speaker 1: be for that or would you be against that? In
3:59
Speaker 1: terms of these water cooler type environments social media.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm against them, and I think there's a
4:05
Speaker 2: good reason why you should be worried about that. As
4:08
Speaker 2: an approach, this idea that all of us as individuals
4:12
Speaker 2: have to prove who we are in order to participate
4:16
Speaker 2: in public discourse. I think that that there's lots of
4:20
Speaker 2: places where KYIC is something that we would advocate for.
4:23
Speaker 2: But I think this is really dangerous. It's dangerous on
4:25
Speaker 2: a number of levels. One is, of course, they say
4:28
Speaker 2: it's about children, and it means all of us have
4:30
Speaker 2: to be positively identified or at least try to be
4:32
Speaker 2: positively identified no matter what, you know, what we're doing online.
4:36
Speaker 3: For a huge swath of things.
4:38
Speaker 2: We know that the people who don't have access to
4:40
Speaker 2: good idea, to good IDs generally or marginalize people. So
4:44
Speaker 2: we're going to start by making it harder for people
4:47
Speaker 2: who need these communities to participate. And I you know,
4:52
Speaker 2: we've already seen a lot of data breaches, right, I mean,
4:54
Speaker 2: I think the presumption that you give your you know,
4:57
Speaker 2: your your identification information to a private company that then
5:02
Speaker 2: you know is usually contracting this out and that it's
5:04
Speaker 2: never going to go anywhere else and it's always safe,
5:06
Speaker 2: it is not one that is consistent with the way
5:09
Speaker 2: that we live. So I think there's a lot of
5:11
Speaker 2: problems with requiring positive identification of individuals in order to
5:16
Speaker 2: participate in any kind of public communication.
5:20
Speaker 1: The other thing that I look at is kind of
5:22
Speaker 1: the overreach of government. If you look at what the
5:24
Speaker 1: DJ has been doing around Tornado Cash. This is built
5:27
Speaker 1: around basically a developer that created some code that a
5:30
Speaker 1: bad guy used. That's kind of the core of it.
5:33
Speaker 1: But yet the DJ is going after them again, even
5:36
Speaker 1: after some of the case had been ruled not necessarily
5:39
Speaker 1: their fault. Why do you think that is?
5:41
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think there's a couple of there's
5:44
Speaker 2: a couple of factual questions there. You know. Iff we've
5:48
Speaker 2: filed briefs on several a couple of times in the
5:51
Speaker 2: Tornado Cash cases to point out that like merely developing
5:55
Speaker 2: a tool that other people misuse can't shouldn't be a
5:58
Speaker 2: basis for liability. There to be significantly more, and we've
6:02
Speaker 2: got serious questions about that. Again, I think people see
6:05
Speaker 2: the harm and they jump to the first thing that
6:09
Speaker 2: gets presented as a way to deal with the harm.
6:11
Speaker 2: I mean, nobody really is a fan of the North
6:13
Speaker 2: Korean's money laundering. You know a lot of money, and
6:18
Speaker 2: I think from the government's perspective that you know, once
6:20
Speaker 2: they've identified the harm, what they do in response to
6:23
Speaker 2: that harm is far less important, and again that's kind
6:26
Speaker 2: of where we live. You have to tailor what you're
6:29
Speaker 2: doing in response to the particular harm. And you know,
6:33
Speaker 2: the question in all of these cases is, you know,
6:35
Speaker 2: if you're just developing code, you shouldn't have any liability.
6:38
Speaker 2: If you're actually participating in illegal transactions like other than
6:42
Speaker 2: developing the code, then that's a whole different thing. And
6:44
Speaker 2: I think that's been lost by the government.
6:49
Speaker 3: In those cases.
6:50
Speaker 2: And I think that I hope that you know, we're
6:52
Speaker 2: starting to see some of the courts recognize that distinction,
6:55
Speaker 2: but not all of them.
6:56
Speaker 3: And I'm troubled by the sort base.
7:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been fighting this five for thirty eight years,
7:03
Speaker 1: and it does not appear I'm not saying that you
7:05
Speaker 1: have done a good bad job at all. The fact
7:07
Speaker 1: that you're bringing all this to the front of the
7:09
Speaker 1: of the discourse out there, I think is a good thing.
7:13
Speaker 1: But I look at it and I think I don't
7:15
Speaker 1: know if surveillance has slowed, if anything, I think it's
7:19
Speaker 1: only accelerated. So do you think this is at some
7:23
Speaker 1: point just going to have to be a line down
7:26
Speaker 1: the middle that says you are either pro privacy or
7:30
Speaker 1: you are government to where it's which they definitely don't
7:34
Speaker 1: care about privacy.
7:35
Speaker 3: Where do you think, Yeah, I mean I think so.
7:38
Speaker 2: I think if we're going to save our democracy, honestly,
7:40
Speaker 2: I think this is about self government, we're going to
7:43
Speaker 2: need to exert privacy again, especially visa be the government.
7:48
Speaker 2: I mean, I care about corporate privacy as well, especially
7:52
Speaker 2: since it feeds the government. We know that the number
7:55
Speaker 2: one purchaser of information from data brokers is the government,
7:58
Speaker 2: and the FBI just said going to keep doing it.
8:01
Speaker 2: So you can't really think about it as like a
8:03
Speaker 2: line between government and private surveillance. But yeah, I think
8:07
Speaker 2: we're going to have to take a hard line against
8:09
Speaker 2: I think that line goes all the way back to
8:11
Speaker 2: the Constitution, and the Fourth Amendment was created to stop
8:15
Speaker 2: mass you know, untargeted surveillance. That's what the general warrants were.
8:21
Speaker 2: That's the basis of the Fourth Amendment. So I think
8:23
Speaker 2: that even if you're a originalist and you think about
8:27
Speaker 2: the history of the country, it's not new to think
8:32
Speaker 2: that we have to do this. But you're right that,
8:34
Speaker 2: like these fights have gotten harder and harder as this
8:37
Speaker 2: ad mixture of the government wanting to know everything about
8:41
Speaker 2: everybody which got supercharged after nine to eleven, and the
8:45
Speaker 2: companies using mass surveillance as their primary business model.
8:50
Speaker 3: These two things have really combined against us.
8:53
Speaker 2: And then when you add things like AI and the
8:55
Speaker 2: development of these technologies to be a lot easier for
8:58
Speaker 2: a lot more people to use, and you end up
9:01
Speaker 2: with ICE agents using facial recognition on protesters like this
9:06
Speaker 2: is technology that didn't used to be available to you know,
9:09
Speaker 2: agents on the street.
9:11
Speaker 3: And now is so exactly.
9:13
Speaker 2: I think we're facing an ongoing uphill battle because we
9:17
Speaker 2: have refused to recognize the risks of not protecting privacy
9:21
Speaker 2: in small ways, and now we have to think about
9:24
Speaker 2: protecting them in big ways.
9:26
Speaker 1: Listen, this fight goes back a long way. I mean,
9:28
Speaker 1: even if you look at predating what happened on social
9:31
Speaker 1: media and you go all the way back into the
9:33
Speaker 1: Clipper Chip, you know era, when they were trying to integrate,
9:36
Speaker 1: That's when I was, you know, basically a young developer
9:38
Speaker 1: watching this happening in front of me, which is why
9:41
Speaker 1: I left Silicon Valley. Was what I was seeing was
9:44
Speaker 1: the advancement of government overreach happening at that time. Now
9:49
Speaker 1: I was just on with Warren Davidson. Just last week,
9:51
Speaker 1: he and I were talking about seven zh two. He
9:53
Speaker 1: hits it right here on this tweet. We talked a
9:55
Speaker 1: little bit about Government Surveillance Reform Act. Why Congress must
9:59
Speaker 1: close the data broker loophole you just mentioned a second
10:01
Speaker 1: ago in reference to protect Americans on section seven oh two.
10:06
Speaker 1: Explain what will happen on April twentieth, which is just
10:09
Speaker 1: around the corner here.
10:10
Speaker 2: I know that people got to call it the data
10:12
Speaker 2: broker loophole, and I think that's fine, but it's actually not.
10:15
Speaker 2: The seven oh two isn't the mechanism by which data
10:18
Speaker 2: brokers are selling information to the government. It's not happening
10:22
Speaker 2: under You know, this is lawyerly, but it's not happening
10:24
Speaker 2: under seven oh two. But what seven oh two does
10:27
Speaker 2: is it authorizes the government to do mass surveillance of
10:31
Speaker 2: Americans by going to the telecommunications companies and our service
10:36
Speaker 2: providers and demanding that they turnover en mass information about it.
10:42
Speaker 2: And one of the things they're doing is tapping into
10:43
Speaker 2: the Internet backbone and watching the traffic that goes by
10:47
Speaker 2: and selecting out what they need. And this is the
10:51
Speaker 2: central program that IFF started suing about in two thousand
10:53
Speaker 2: and six and it's still going on. We've shrunk it,
10:57
Speaker 2: but it's still going on to a lesser that authority
11:01
Speaker 2: to do that is up for renewal on April twentieth.
11:05
Speaker 2: That's one thing Congress did was make it expire, and
11:09
Speaker 2: if it gets renewed, it actually got expanded the last
11:13
Speaker 2: time it was up for renewal. It needs to get contracted,
11:16
Speaker 2: if not go away. And one of the things that
11:19
Speaker 2: needs to happen is that this information is supposed to
11:22
Speaker 2: be collected for national security purposes and used by the
11:26
Speaker 2: NSA to find spies and terrorists, but the FBI has
11:30
Speaker 2: had access to it in ways that we don't understand,
11:33
Speaker 2: we can't control, we can't even count. They won't even
11:35
Speaker 2: give us a number of how many Americans are affected
11:38
Speaker 2: by this. So the loophole that I think we need
11:40
Speaker 2: to close is the FBI shouldn't have access to information
11:43
Speaker 2: that the National Security Agency collects for these narrow purposes.
11:49
Speaker 2: And I think that closing that loophole, which is center widens.
11:53
Speaker 3: A has a bill on it, and so do some
11:56
Speaker 3: other people.
11:57
Speaker 2: Closing that loophole is the number one priority for a
12:02
Speaker 2: lot of people, including eff I mean again, I'd like
12:05
Speaker 2: to see the whole thing killed, but short of that,
12:08
Speaker 2: we'll keep chipping away at it. And this is a
12:11
Speaker 2: very big chip, this information. We were told that this
12:14
Speaker 2: information was important to allow the NSA to protect us
12:17
Speaker 2: from terrorists, and now it's being used by the FBI
12:19
Speaker 2: in domestic investigations. I have nothing to do with terrorism,
12:23
Speaker 2: and we need to close that off.
12:25
Speaker 1: Is there a way for an American citizen to actually
12:28
Speaker 1: do a FOYA request on what the government has on
12:31
Speaker 1: you personally, not.
12:33
Speaker 3: In the context of you.
12:35
Speaker 2: I mean you can for some pieces, but anything that's
12:38
Speaker 2: national security or law enforcement, which is the stuff we're
12:40
Speaker 2: talking to here, have big exceptions in FOYA.
12:44
Speaker 3: So it's we're trying see what you get.
12:46
Speaker 2: But the FOYA law itself doesn't require the government to
12:50
Speaker 2: turn over information if it is being collected for national
12:54
Speaker 2: security purposes or law enforcement purposes.
12:58
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is not making me feel good. Okay.
13:02
Speaker 2: You need to see this as a policy in a
13:04
Speaker 2: legal matter, and we need we need to build the
13:08
Speaker 2: technologies that.
13:09
Speaker 3: Support us doing that.
13:10
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's one of the promises I think
13:13
Speaker 2: of the crypto world was that we would have a
13:15
Speaker 2: way to at least on the financial side, but even
13:19
Speaker 2: on the on non financial side, we'd have some technological
13:22
Speaker 2: means to help protect information from the government and from
13:26
Speaker 2: bad guys, but we're you know, we need to see
13:29
Speaker 2: that supported and come to fruition.
13:32
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to find out, because I think things
13:34
Speaker 1: are going to get very active, especially after clarity, if
13:38
Speaker 1: in fact we get clarity through, because that will set
13:40
Speaker 1: up a lot of companies to develop some new technologies
13:42
Speaker 1: to maybe go in that direction. One thing that's happening
13:45
Speaker 1: on social media, and this is one of the areas
13:47
Speaker 1: that I'm very intrigued with of what especially on this move,
13:52
Speaker 1: is that Twitter now is rolling out a new feature
13:54
Speaker 1: that automatically locks accounts the moment that they start posting
13:58
Speaker 1: about crypto. So this is Nikita Bayer who said that
14:03
Speaker 1: the system is now going to flag accounts with no
14:05
Speaker 1: prior crypto activity that begin promoting tokens forcing identity verification
14:11
Speaker 1: before further posts. So basically, KYC, now, if you haven't
14:16
Speaker 1: been ever talking about it before, and all of a
14:18
Speaker 1: sudden you found crypto and you start talking about crypto,
14:21
Speaker 1: you're going to get flagged. What do you think about this?
14:23
Speaker 1: Do you think Elon is censoring Twitter right now?
14:26
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean that's the censorship one percent, that's one
14:29
Speaker 2: hundred percent censorship. I mean, you know, I understand the
14:32
Speaker 2: problem that they're trying to solve. There's a lot of
14:34
Speaker 2: scammy stuff going on in crypto, but it's a very
14:39
Speaker 2: blunt instrument, and this is usually how censorship works. And
14:43
Speaker 2: of course, you know, I think with Twitter, you with
14:46
Speaker 2: with Musk, You've always got to worry that, is he
14:48
Speaker 2: favoring his own technology?
14:51
Speaker 1: Well, he's dropping a wall.
14:52
Speaker 2: Is there an anti competitive purpose buried in what might
14:56
Speaker 2: otherwise be something that if somebody who wasn't a player
15:00
Speaker 2: in this space decided to do that. But yeah, I
15:02
Speaker 2: mean this is why censorship is such a blunt instrument.
15:05
Speaker 2: You know, it's always going to be not always, but
15:08
Speaker 2: almost always going to be overbroad. And this sounds like
15:11
Speaker 2: it's something that's overbroad. You know, you've got to look
15:14
Speaker 2: at the range of tools that X might have to
15:17
Speaker 2: try to stop scams. I think it's important for you know,
15:20
Speaker 2: nobody wants to go to a platform that's just full
15:22
Speaker 2: of scams, So.
15:24
Speaker 1: There's play of tools out there that you can do.
15:28
Speaker 1: Most of the other people, I don't.
15:29
Speaker 2: Know in the world well enough to know, but this
15:32
Speaker 2: sounds pretty blunt to me.
15:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is getting to be a problem, I think
15:36
Speaker 1: in general, because obviously blockchain, to your point, is we're
15:39
Speaker 1: supposed to kind of solve this. We've already seen that
15:42
Speaker 1: even with stable coins. There's integration now because of the
15:45
Speaker 1: Genius Act where they can actually go in and clawback
15:49
Speaker 1: transactions inside accounts. That's being done by Circle and Tether both.
15:52
Speaker 1: So what do you make of that when we do
15:55
Speaker 1: go to a digital system and have that government overreach?
15:59
Speaker 1: Are you concerned learned that that is kind of the
16:01
Speaker 1: ultimate surveillance state where they can turn money on and off.
16:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think and you know, look, credit
16:09
Speaker 2: cards have always had a version of this right, and
16:12
Speaker 2: people's bank accounts get you know, my friend Randy Wrightman
16:15
Speaker 2: just wrote a book called Transaction Denied that goes over
16:18
Speaker 2: all the ways in which our financial privacy and security
16:22
Speaker 2: is very tenuous right now, and her stories are pretty
16:27
Speaker 2: compelling on this. Why move to a digital thing if
16:31
Speaker 2: we're just going to recreate the exact same problems that
16:34
Speaker 2: led us to do it in the first place. And
16:35
Speaker 2: I think, you know, that doesn't mean that there's no
16:38
Speaker 2: government I think that that's a bit of a that's
16:41
Speaker 2: not probably going to happen, and it's a bit of
16:43
Speaker 2: a misunderstanding. But I also think that you know, simply
16:47
Speaker 2: creating winners and losers who get to be the ones
16:51
Speaker 2: that get to do things and everybody, Like we had
16:54
Speaker 2: Wall Street for that, we don't need a crypto world
16:57
Speaker 2: just to create a bunch of new bosses who are
16:59
Speaker 2: the same as the old bosses.
17:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to go through a rapid fire with you
17:03
Speaker 1: on some questions around this. Native zero knowledge upgrades on
17:10
Speaker 1: ethereum will be kind of the first real defense weapon
17:12
Speaker 1: against surveillance.
17:14
Speaker 2: I don't know, I can't tell, you know. I like
17:17
Speaker 2: zero knowledge proofs, but them in the abstract don't do anything.
17:22
Speaker 2: It has to be embedded in a really good system.
17:25
Speaker 2: So I'm hesitant to just say, oh, yeah, want you
17:29
Speaker 2: have zero knowledgey win?
17:30
Speaker 1: Yeah in the middle, what about this one? Privacy will
17:33
Speaker 1: cost extra now, adding to the wealth gap in the US.
17:37
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's what we're seeing right now,
17:39
Speaker 2: and it's a problem we need to address it. You know,
17:42
Speaker 2: poor privacy for poor people is not an answer. I
17:46
Speaker 2: think this is a right and we need to treat
17:48
Speaker 2: it like a right.
17:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, user data on TikTok is worse off under
17:54
Speaker 1: US corporate control the lessons that it was under China.
17:59
Speaker 1: What do you think.
18:00
Speaker 2: I think we just traded one bad for another. We
18:02
Speaker 2: certainly didn't solve the problem.
18:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's in the middle.
18:05
Speaker 3: I don't know enough about what was going on.
18:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I don't know about worse, but certainly
18:11
Speaker 2: not better.
18:12
Speaker 1: Okay, not a good one. Polymarket might be the beginning
18:15
Speaker 1: of the first big mainstream Web three social media app
18:18
Speaker 1: based on truth.
18:20
Speaker 3: I think I disagree.
18:21
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not a fan of the idea that market
18:25
Speaker 2: sequels truth.
18:27
Speaker 1: Why Why do you think that? I think that's the mindset.
18:30
Speaker 3: Predicting what the truth is is not the same thing
18:32
Speaker 3: as the truth.
18:33
Speaker 2: I actually think truth exists quite apart from interesting from that,
18:37
Speaker 2: and I believe you know so.
18:40
Speaker 3: I mean, polymarkets are interesting and they're fun.
18:42
Speaker 2: I just think that the idea that they're everything and
18:44
Speaker 2: that they define truth is too far.
18:47
Speaker 1: Let's go to this one. Elon will never allow users
18:49
Speaker 1: to move their social graphs out of X.
18:52
Speaker 3: I hate to say never about mister Musk.
18:54
Speaker 2: He does whatever is in his interest in the moment
18:57
Speaker 2: and he's unpredictable, but I think it's a it's a
19:00
Speaker 2: it's going to be a hard call because that's what
19:02
Speaker 2: he thinks he has.
19:03
Speaker 3: He thinks he has captured people.
19:05
Speaker 1: Well, and it may get more as we get into
19:07
Speaker 1: the financial system inside X because that is going to
19:11
Speaker 1: be a big deal. He's luring people in with some
19:13
Speaker 1: pretty outlandish offers, so it will be a big deal.
19:18
Speaker 1: Only fans will get forced to feed.
19:19
Speaker 2: A legislative solution to this, I think we need interoperability.
19:23
Speaker 2: We need to be able to take our social graphs
19:25
Speaker 2: and leave, and we need we're going to need legislative
19:27
Speaker 2: help to make that happen. We're going to need to
19:29
Speaker 2: be able to stop things like the Computer Fraud and
19:31
Speaker 2: Abuse Act in terms of service and section twelve oh
19:34
Speaker 2: one that now keep people locked into where they are,
19:37
Speaker 2: and we're going to need to We're going to need
19:40
Speaker 2: policy and technical help. But I think interoperability ought to
19:44
Speaker 2: be the goal for all of these systems, that you
19:47
Speaker 2: can always leave and take take more your community with you.
19:51
Speaker 1: Why do you think that federated social media never took hold,
19:55
Speaker 1: I mean mastered on you. Look at some that have
19:57
Speaker 1: tried this. Even if you go into some of the
19:59
Speaker 1: big when ecosystems out there that have attempted this, They've
20:03
Speaker 1: all kind of fell flat. Even though I know there's
20:05
Speaker 1: a lot of master on servers out there, I'm part
20:07
Speaker 1: of a few of them. But the point is is
20:09
Speaker 1: they're not They're not very prolific.
20:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the I think that the I
20:15
Speaker 2: don't think we're done yet. I don't think they failed.
20:17
Speaker 2: I think they're just a slow role. But I also
20:19
Speaker 2: think that a lot of these communities are not very
20:23
Speaker 2: good at user interface. They're not really good at making
20:27
Speaker 2: something that is useful for people other than them. And
20:31
Speaker 2: I think that I love the technical community. I come
20:34
Speaker 2: from them, I've represented them, but like, you've got to
20:37
Speaker 2: be able to speak to people who don't already speak
20:39
Speaker 2: your language. And that's what a good user interface and
20:42
Speaker 2: a good proposition for why you should do this looks
20:47
Speaker 2: like and I over.
20:48
Speaker 3: And over again, and this is from the nineties.
20:50
Speaker 2: You know, I've continued to watch as this community really
20:54
Speaker 2: doesn't do a very good job of making it making
20:58
Speaker 2: something that is useful to people who don't already believe.
21:01
Speaker 1: Do you think companies like now only fans will be
21:05
Speaker 1: forced to go fully decentralized.
21:07
Speaker 2: I think that that's a very good option for them.
21:11
Speaker 2: I think they may end up picking that, they may
21:13
Speaker 2: end up picking full identification and blah blah blah. I'm
21:17
Speaker 2: not sure which way they're going to go, you know,
21:20
Speaker 2: but I think that's an option that they should consider.
21:25
Speaker 2: And uh and I you know, it's it's just problematic
21:28
Speaker 2: the attacks on you know, it's we always see that
21:32
Speaker 2: attacks on sexual material are the first, the first wave
21:35
Speaker 2: of censorship, and the next thing they're talking about terrorists,
21:38
Speaker 2: and the next thing they're talking about, you know, predators.
21:42
Speaker 3: It's the same.
21:43
Speaker 2: You know, it's the same set of boogeyman that are
21:47
Speaker 2: not unreal. There are things we can do and they're
21:49
Speaker 2: not I'm not saying they're not harms. I'm just saying
21:51
Speaker 2: they get used to usher in a lot more than
21:54
Speaker 2: the problem.
21:55
Speaker 1: No doubt. Speaking of boogiemans, you got those Carrie's data leak.
22:01
Speaker 1: Do you think that was overblown and had no real
22:03
Speaker 1: grassroots backlash?
22:05
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
22:06
Speaker 2: I actually think that's going to be a piece of
22:08
Speaker 2: why we're going to see the midterms maybe go the
22:10
Speaker 2: way that they're going to go.
22:11
Speaker 3: I think it's a really big deal.
22:13
Speaker 2: Honestly, we're suing Doge over the Office of Personnel Management.
22:16
Speaker 2: I think that those leaks are important, and I think
22:19
Speaker 2: the fact that we can't see the outcome of them
22:22
Speaker 2: right now is making people think that they can just
22:25
Speaker 2: look away and it won't affect them. But privacy matters,
22:28
Speaker 2: and this is a huge privacy issue.
22:30
Speaker 1: Who well, speaking of privacy, who do you think is
22:32
Speaker 1: a greater personal risk personal privacy risk right now? Elon
22:38
Speaker 1: or Elizabeth Warren?
22:40
Speaker 3: Well, I would pick in ln Musk.
22:41
Speaker 2: I think that Elizabeth Warren is a member of Congress
22:44
Speaker 2: and she needs to get a lot of other people
22:46
Speaker 2: to agree with her before she can do things. She's
22:48
Speaker 2: not just a billionaire who waves a wand and decides.
22:51
Speaker 2: So I actually think that I would rather have somebody
22:55
Speaker 2: who has some checks on them, and not just the
22:58
Speaker 2: ability to write check over any billionaire with regard to
23:02
Speaker 2: my privacy.
23:03
Speaker 1: And I have seen Warren do some pretty interesting things
23:07
Speaker 1: in Congress. So until she is out of power, I'm
23:11
Speaker 1: gonna have to go there. Why doesn't Bernie Sanders support
23:15
Speaker 1: ethereum or proof of stake or even stable coin yields?
23:18
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?
23:19
Speaker 2: I don't know I'm not a close enough watcher of
23:22
Speaker 2: Bernie to know I apologize of ours.
23:24
Speaker 1: Ring camera backlash proves privacy has already gone mainstream, but
23:29
Speaker 1: only for cameras.
23:30
Speaker 2: Well. I won't do the but only part for you,
23:32
Speaker 2: but I do think that the ring camera backlash indicates
23:35
Speaker 2: that there's a moment now where people are like, Okay,
23:38
Speaker 2: this is too far. I think we're again, I think
23:41
Speaker 2: we're going to see backlash. We're starting to see ALPRs,
23:45
Speaker 2: which is another kind of camera, but a very different one,
23:48
Speaker 2: the license plate readers.
23:49
Speaker 3: I think that we're seeing.
23:51
Speaker 2: You know, facial recognition, which again is cameras. I think
23:54
Speaker 2: it's easier for people to understand it. But I think
23:56
Speaker 2: people are starting to look at, you know, the the
24:00
Speaker 2: way palenteer is being used to uh, you know, map
24:04
Speaker 2: communities and decide whether where ice raids happen.
24:07
Speaker 3: That's location data, that's not cameras.
24:11
Speaker 2: So I think that I think that it's I'm hopeful
24:14
Speaker 2: that it'll be the first wave of concern that will
24:17
Speaker 2: then lead people to look, you know, pick up the
24:19
Speaker 2: rock and see all the ways in which our privacy is.
24:22
Speaker 1: Because does the EFF publish any kind of guidelines out
24:26
Speaker 1: there for you know, individuals to kind of protect their privacies, like, hey,
24:31
Speaker 1: here are some basic things you should do. Can they
24:33
Speaker 1: find that.
24:34
Speaker 2: We have a set of materials called Surveillance Self Defense
24:37
Speaker 2: s S and we do we do a little threat
24:42
Speaker 2: modeling for people, you know, are you a protester, are
24:44
Speaker 2: you a journalist?
24:45
Speaker 3: Are you somebody going across a border?
24:48
Speaker 2: And then we try to get people into a set
24:50
Speaker 2: of recommendations that map because we know that privacy isn't
24:54
Speaker 2: a one size fits all thing. There are certain things
24:56
Speaker 2: that can help a lot of people, but we ask
24:59
Speaker 2: people to kind of think a little bit about what
25:01
Speaker 2: their personal risk is and then try to provide something
25:04
Speaker 2: that's a little more focused about that risk. But those
25:09
Speaker 2: those materials SSD OR we make available for free multiple languages,
25:14
Speaker 2: and they're the basis on which, if you've ever been
25:16
Speaker 2: to lots of security trainers in lots of different areas
25:20
Speaker 2: use our materials as their back end information.
25:23
Speaker 1: Let's talk about discord says no images will be stored
25:26
Speaker 1: when face scanning our children. Do you believe them or
25:30
Speaker 1: cancel this cord?
25:31
Speaker 2: I mean you can do it that way. I think
25:33
Speaker 2: that we need to, you know, make tell them to
25:34
Speaker 2: put up a shut up in terms.
25:36
Speaker 3: Of I don't think you should believe them. I think
25:38
Speaker 3: we should require them to show us. But we know that.
25:41
Speaker 2: You know, Apple, for instance, with its face scan, does
25:44
Speaker 2: a lot to try to keep things on device and
25:47
Speaker 2: make it hard for people to use, so it's not
25:49
Speaker 2: impossible to do.
25:51
Speaker 3: But I think that we shouldn't take.
25:52
Speaker 1: If there's enough backlash. Yeah, I think if there's enough
25:55
Speaker 1: backlash from the community. One thing I have noted too
25:59
Speaker 1: with teens and gen z to a certain extent, they
26:02
Speaker 1: seem to be getting more aware of their privacy issues,
26:06
Speaker 1: even though they are letting somebody go well.
26:10
Speaker 2: I think that, you know, again, privacy is about control
26:13
Speaker 2: and it's about power. I think that privacy is about
26:16
Speaker 2: how people with less power get some protection against people
26:20
Speaker 2: who have more power power. And I think that that
26:23
Speaker 2: that you know, when you're looking at teens, you know
26:27
Speaker 2: you will find them protecting their privacy in ways that
26:30
Speaker 2: protect themselves from powerful people around them. Sometimes that's their
26:33
Speaker 2: parents or their their teachers first. But you know, PW
26:36
Speaker 2: did a survey a little while ago, and they discovered
26:39
Speaker 2: that people younger people play more with their privacy settings
26:43
Speaker 2: and know more about their privacy settings than older people,
26:47
Speaker 2: and so I actually think that might we might be
26:49
Speaker 2: wrong in our kids today don't care about privacy thing
26:54
Speaker 2: that we say. I think that they they do. They
26:56
Speaker 2: just may not do the same things we might do
26:59
Speaker 2: about it. But as we're entering into a time where
27:03
Speaker 2: the consequences of not having privacy are much more clear
27:07
Speaker 2: and obvious to people than they used to be, and
27:09
Speaker 2: I think we'll see people take more of all ages,
27:13
Speaker 2: take more steps to protect their privacy.
27:14
Speaker 3: I mean the number of.
27:15
Speaker 2: People I know who now use signal as opposed to
27:17
Speaker 2: before where they were like I don't have anything to hide,
27:19
Speaker 2: and suddenly people are like, ah, maybe I should do this,
27:23
Speaker 2: Like it's increasing.
27:24
Speaker 1: Last question is is make America private again will be
27:29
Speaker 1: the new Maha in terms of voting power? Do you
27:32
Speaker 1: think that'll be the case?
27:33
Speaker 3: Oh? I would love it. But I think that's great
27:37
Speaker 3: dream no small dreams. I think that's a great idea.
27:39
Speaker 2: I'm not a good predictor, but I think it's a
27:42
Speaker 2: good idea.
27:43
Speaker 1: Well, we're just going to put it in the good
27:45
Speaker 1: idea box then, because I'm in the same camp with you.
27:49
Speaker 1: This is good. I love it. You guys, of course,
27:52
Speaker 1: can find a lot more about the book. Again, I'll
27:54
Speaker 1: just require you to go over and read Cindy's book here,
27:58
Speaker 1: Privacy's Defender. It's a good one and it's something you
28:01
Speaker 1: should all do. I think you, especially if you're in
28:04
Speaker 1: the blockchain, in the crypto community, you're learning quickly that
28:07
Speaker 1: privacy is so important. So check it out over there. Sindy,
28:09
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming in today.
28:10
Speaker 3: We appreciate it, all right, Thank you so much.
28:20
Speaker 1: If you like this video, like and subscribe, drop a
28:22
Speaker 1: comment down below, and also join our free private member group.
28:26
Speaker 1: The link is in the description.