SXSW – South by Southwest
Pyr Marcondes
March 11, 2023 – 17:19 hours
The central question of our digital identity, the question of cypherpunk, is always present in the latest editions of SXSW (Credit: Lidiia/shutterstock)
In the 1990s, a digital activist movement called Cypherpunks emerged. These guys already believed that we will actually be free in the digital world only when we all have encrypted control over our data and only then will our legitimate citizenship be secured before society and the state.
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This is an issue that goes beyond the equally relevant privacy, to be part of our social existence as a whole, in the essential and increasingly digital world. It is not only a technological issue, but also a political one.
This is what cypherpunks believed, and to me at least the philosophical principle of that sect seems indisputable (they also defended digital terrorism from the powerful, but that’s another matter).
Believing that we will not change much without a fight and without socially active denunciation, Dr. Harry Halpin, also an activist for increasing privacy through the decentralization of the structure and concentrated power we have today in technological platforms, has been arrested several times in several countries. Master in subjects such as cryptocurrencyhyperinflation, blockchain, sociology and information technology, Halpin shared the stage at SXSW with Ysadora Cordova, Brazilian director of Único, with a curriculum of participation in numerous institutions and activities to increase digital privacy and human rights, on a panel Breaking paradigms about the future of digital ID.
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The central question of our digital identity, that of cypherpunk, has always been present in the latest editions of SXSW. This time, he got the outlines of a more effective positioning of society based on liberation movements and an approach to effective control of all our data.
The basic concept that the speakers remembered is that the more information, the more invasive and the less privacy. Added to this is the fact that most of the time we authorize our data to go around without having any idea where.
About 1 billion people on the planet do not have access to the digital world. More than 6 billion have access to a digital identity, and half of those identities are traceable.
The fact is that we can do less and less without a digital identity, and that is why the whole issue of security takes on such a dramatic shape.
The formula defended by the speakers is: Data Control + Privacy + Access = Revolution.
As the cypherpunks argued, we really need a revolution.
We just haven’t figured out how to organize it yet, and so far the enemy is winning every battle they choose to engage in.
The saying goes that every freedom has its price. In this case, we also pay dearly for the lack of it.
