Conference:  Defcon 31

Authors: Roger Dingledine The Tor Project, Chris Painter President of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, Jeff Moss Founder, DEF CON, Joel Todoroff Office of the National Cyber Director

2023-08-01

The internet is still largely centralized, and not every country has strong institutional controls preserving the right to access information or speak freely. Heck, even many "liberal democracies" are backsliding. While this may sound like an infosec talk suited for the think tank crowd, these developments are impacting hackers and the results they present at hacker cons. Internet freedom tools are about empowering users to have the safety to make their own priorities. While China, Iran, and Russia are obviously key concerns in this space, many other countries are seeking to enact new laws and regulations that impact all types of users -- some with nefarious intent and others just accidentally harmful. This conversation will explore the reasons, the symptoms, and some ideas about how to preserve our ability to set our own priorities. We will offer a holistic and detailed picture of how censorship affects our work and that of our colleagues -- how even if you feel secure in the freedom you have where you are right now, government censorship and surveillance in other places will unquestionably affect us all.