Janine is a journalist, bitcoin privacy educator, and an OpenSats board member.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED TO YOUTUBE FEBRUARY 2023: https://youtu.be/xTfY5TjuN2A
FILMED MAY 2022.
(00:00:01) Introducing Janine
(00:00:23) What does freedom mean to Janine?
(00:06:07) Conveying the importance of freedom
(00:11:45) The purpose of KYC laws
(00:14:16) A world without cash and misconceptions about privacy
(00:18:34) Being proactive with your privacy
(00:20:52) Janine's decision to become an independent journalist
(00:24:33) Why privacy is important
(00:27:17) Why does Janine hide her face?
(00:33:34) Are public figures that advocate for privacy hypocrites?
(00:35:41) Is it ever too late to improve your privacy?
(00:37:56) Why Janine doesn't carry a cell phone
(00:44:32) Children being born into a surveillance economy
(00:53:20) The Free Assange movement
[00:00:02]
Unknown:
Janine Rome is a cyberpunk journalist and Bitcoin privacy educator. She publishes a newsletter titled This Month in Bitcoin Privacy, writing about privacy related technology developments, events, and conversations in Bitcoin, as well as the tools and strategies that can be used to protect our right to informational self determination. Well, Janine, thank you for for joining us. I'm very excited for, this conversation. So, to get started, where wait, when you think about when you think about freedom, what is what does freedom mean to you?
[00:00:46] Unknown:
Freedom mean, so I have there there's a song that I like that I've actually used the lyrics. I plan to use the lyrics eventually for podcasts. It's by Kings of Convenience, and they say, I can't remember what they say. Freedom freedom is no greater than its owner, no view is wider than the eye, and I really like that lyric. A lot a lot of I think it's in from an album that's called, declaration of dependence, and it's kind of about how, I mean, I think what the album is about is that, I think it's all American singers and, we we like to think that we're independent, but we actually have a lot of dependencies on things that, can often take away our freedom.
One of those, of course, I think, is the monetary system. Like, I mean, for the most part, I've lived in countries where there's a relatively high amount of economic freedom, especially when it comes to, any anything to do with religion or reading texts, or more recently, sexuality, like, that's relatively free, and there's a lot of places in the world where that isn't the case. And I think money is very important for that because if you're not able to economically support yourself, if you're not able to associate with others in terms of forming businesses, or choosing what products to buy or services to use, then effectively it becomes very hard to be yourself or express yourself.
And so if you have a monetary system where your choices affect whether you are even able to use money at all, or if you're restricted to only using it for certain things, even if they cause no harm whatsoever to anyone else, then I think your freedom in so many other ways is restricted. Like, you your freedom of speech is impacted, your freedom of association is impacted. All of those things, to some level come back to money. We've seen that with, you know, cancel culture recently, which, I think some of it can be legitimate, when it's challenging people of power who have not been held to account. Like, some of it is a form of boycotting that's basically being applied to individuals.
But I think in a lot of cases, especially when the the allegations aren't based on solid evidence, Essentially, what people are doing is, mass dis a disassociation, and, you know, we can say, well, they all have the freedom to do that, and of course, I agree if they don't want to give money to someone, that's fine. But, if that happens on such a scale where a person is basically excluded from the economy, maybe even they get their bank account shut down, depending on what the allegation is, then, effectively, they can't live. And I've heard from people who have experienced this personally, and a lot of them say, I think there was even a book by John Rawlinson, where he interviewed someone and they basically said, who had experienced this kind of backlash, and he said, basically these people just want me to disappear and go away, they want me to die without actually saying that.
And he he also said something interesting where it's like, they want to use me as a cultural reference for, like, what you shouldn't do. So freedom to me is that, while you should obviously be able to express your dislike for people who you think have done, harm to others, you should also have ways to protect yourself against that being used, for example, political censorship, because that is also happening. And I think people need to be more careful, you know, we've I think there's a lot of responsibility in having freedom as well. For example, recently with the Wasabi blacklisting, which was very unfortunate, someone who is a contributor made the argument that, Wasabi is within the right to do this, Right. Because they own the server, he was making a property rights argument. And I don't I don't disagree with that. I don't think anyone was saying, like, that Wasabi doesn't have the right to do what they did. They own the server.
They're offering the service. They can choose not to or to change it. And they do have the right, but that doesn't mean just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean that other people won't, be impacted by it, won't dislike it, and they have to take that into account. So freedom is, I think, when you're living in a complex society, it's really a constant negotiation, where you should be able to express yourself and get the things that you need and want, but you also have to deal with everyone else around you who is trying to do the same thing, and sometimes that conflicts. So it's a constant negotiation.
It's very much affected by your economic power, and it's affected by the political situation that you find yourself in, and how much you are contributing to that system.
[00:06:08] Unknown:
That makes a lot of sense to me. I you know, you are a independent journalist focused on privacy and freedom. I have a lot of respect for your work. It's an honor to call you a friend and to have you here speaking with me. When you you hit an interesting point there where you mentioned that we have the benefit of living in in relatively free countries, and get to enjoy a good amount of freedom. When you talk to people and you're, you know, in your writing how do you, how do you frame to them? How do you make it make them understand or help them understand, the importance of freedom and how, you know, people in other countries how how they're dealing with it, right? Like how do you get people to relate to it? Because that's something I've noticed that is very very difficult to do, most people just have blinders on.
[00:07:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, in my experience I find it I find it harder to con to talk to people or convince them of the value of freedom when they already live with it in abundance. Right. And they don't appreciate it necessarily. I don't really have to convince people who are living in places where they don't have it, that they need it because they already want it. Even if they don't consciously they're not consciously thinking about it, I think every day they're aware of, to some degree what what else might be out there that they don't have access to, and that they want to experience it, but for various reasons they can't, like, I mean, also one of the benefits of living in a country that has a lot of freedom is that you not only have freedom in that place, you have privileges that you can, take to other places, you can have a lot, you can, a lot of these countries have visa fee travel or very limited visa restrictions to go to other parts of the world where conversely, people in those countries that they visit can't visit their country or it's very hard to do.
So it's also it's very much tied, like, your your freedom is not only within the area that you are that has a relatively high amount of freedom, it's also the the political privilege that you carry with you, with your, you know, national identity documents.
[00:08:28] Unknown:
So, I mean, there's a massive disconnect there. Right? There there there is a group of people, who the importance of freedom is very obvious to them, and those are those are people that generally live in less free countries. And then there's a group of people that they don't even really think about it. And is is that disconnect ever gonna be solved? Is that a solvable disconnect? Is or is that just, you know, something that we just have to live with when when we work in this space?
[00:08:57] Unknown:
I definitely think there's a disconnect, I've noticed, especially when it comes to money, like, I've been to so many places where you go in and they just assume you have, you have bank cards. Right. I actually went to a cafe once, I think it was in the UK, and I walked in and I tried to get something with cash because I'm very much a cash based, person. I pretty much do all of my transactions in cash, unless I have no other option. And I went to this cafe and I wanted to purchase something and he said, nope. We only take cards. I said, because at the time I actually didn't have a bank card that would work in the UK, and I said that, and he said, are you a refugee?
And on one hand I found that kind of insulting because I thought, well, if I am, you're saying that you wouldn't take my money, you, like, I I'm at a, you know, disadvantaged position, and you wouldn't take my money, but then on the other hand, I also thought, well, do I have to be one for you to respect my choice, or maybe it's not even my choice? I mean, for me, it's at the time, in that instance, it wasn't a choice. I only had cash, but usually I do have a choice between cash or bank cards, and I always choose cash, because I prefer that, but a lot of people use cash because that is their only choice. They get paid in cash for whatever reason, they can't get a bank account or it's very expensive to use, So he not only wasn't he or him or his business wasn't respecting my choice, but, Yeah. I found that interesting. And, yeah, I think there's a lot of disconnect in the financial sector where they, and especially in countries where it's becoming more and more the case that they assume that you already have these things, that they expect that that will always be the case, and that will be good, and that will never be used against us.
And that's part of why, we have this CBDC panel coming up that, I assume part of what we're going to say is that, well, we, we already see what's happening with the financial system as it is and the restrictions they're putting on it. Why would we give them even more power to restrict us, especially when they basically give lip service to privacy, but they don't they haven't demonstrated that they actually care about it in any way. Like, what they're doing what they're doing trying to get rid of cash, what they're doing with increasing, AML, legislation, which is really clamping down on, and increasing the need for identification at every level. They're demonstrating that they don't want to give more privacy or even keep the same level of privacy that we have now, and I think they don't understand how dangerous that is.
The biggest disconnect that I've learned about recently is, like, the extent to which a lot of this anti money laundering policy has literally no effect whatsoever on money laundering around the world. There's a ton of papers now that shows that the amount that the amount of, like, criminal proceeds that they're capturing is, like, 1% or less. And there was even a paper, I think, by the United Nations. I think it was the Office of Drugs and Crime. They published it way back in 2011. And they they had an excellent line in there where they were like, our our money launderer is so much smarter than drug dealers, the because they made this point that, like, we're capturing a lot more of the drugs around the world than we are this laundered money. Are the money launderers so much smarter than drug dealers, or there is there something wrong with this system?
And it's unfortunate because not only is it super ineffective, but it's keeping a lot of people out of the financial system because they're putting up these barriers.
[00:12:49] Unknown:
Do you think that does that even matter, the logic that it doesn't doesn't work to stop criminals? Do do you think those those laws are actually there to stop criminals, or are they there to surveil the broader population? Is it just an excuse with the criminal side? Yeah, I mean, I, I mean I don't know, I haven't met too many people,
[00:13:07] Unknown:
personally in the field to say whether in their heart of hearts, they actually think it's effective. But no. I I I think to some degree, they must know that it doesn't work, and, you know, whether whether it's effective or not, maybe it would be super effective, and I would still think that they were there were costs to it, which was financial exclusion,
[00:13:26] Unknown:
but given that it's definitely not working, and then we also have the financial exclusion, it's a super it's a really bad deal. But I feel like if you talk to a lot of them, they would say, okay. So let's we should collect even more information. We should put up even more barriers.
[00:13:41] Unknown:
Right? Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't know how they could collect even I mean, they they could, but at that point, I mean, there's something to be said for, like, there's a reason that we don't do this with cash. There was another paper that I read that I think no. It's the same. It was actually a paper, financials it was called Financial Surveillance, Who Cares? And it was about, essentially, like, the kind of the the adverse reaction to anti money laundering policy, and, like, where is it coming from, what are the arguments, It was kind of just a summary of that. So like, with with cash,
[00:14:19] Unknown:
we were you were talking earlier about you went into a store, they didn't accept cash. Right? And I so I see, I see in America and I see among my peers a push away from cash. Both from on the business side, but also just like on the user side. A lot of people choose convenience of they like their payment apps, they like their credit cards. A lot of people I went to school with choose not to use cash. They prefer not to use cash. Do you think as a global society cash is dying? Is cash is cash gonna be short lived in this world? And a world without cash, what does that world look like to you?
[00:14:58] Unknown:
I definitely think cash is dying in certain parts of the world. I I've deliberately chosen to live in places where I think still 50% or more of the transactions are made in cash, and I think there are many parts of the world where it will take much much longer, if it happens at all, to transition of cash just because you have a large older generation who doesn't who isn't up to switching. You also just have a lot of distrust in the the government, the system in general that they don't even want to use it because they're suspicious of it. I think that was happening to a degree in El Salvador, even with bitcoin, like, because they went through dollarization before that and didn't The results of that for a lot of people weren't that great, and they kind of suspected that Bitcoin would have a similar effect. So there's a lot of resistance initially, especially given that the government was involved in promoting bitcoin. Right.
Yeah. I think I think a big part of the reason that people are a lot of people are sort of voluntarily transition transitioning away from cash on their own is because, the the the people that build the digital financial system, they try very hard to make sure that the costs of that are hidden from you. For example, most people aren't aware of the huge amount of data that is collected about them just so that they can use a credit card. Right. They're not aware of how the credit system works and how it can be very toxic. And I think if people were more aware of those costs, if it was more clear to them, then they might change their mind.
That's actually been a case with privacy for people who don't. Right. They're not they don't value privacy or they're not sure what they should do about it. Once you show them the cost of not doing something, then they, there's kind of a paradox where peep a lot of people say they care about privacy, but in practice they don't do that much about it. But once you, that was initially that was assumed like, it was assumed that the reason for that is because people were basically lying about how much they valued privacy. Right. But the reality was that they just didn't actually understand how the systems they were using worked. Like, they thought they were using them properly. They thought they did care somewhat about their privacy, and they were doing it in the right way. And then once someone showed them, well, no, this is what you're doing, this is how it's harming you, here's a better way to do it, then they actually did it. So it was actually just a it was a question of education. It's an education short full. Yeah. A lot of a lot of this is just education. Like, there's a paper, I think, in 2017 that I wrote about where, it was like misconceptions people had about privacy and, like, about things like email and SMS texting.
And even in 2017 or 2016, whenever they did the survey, most people were still under the impression that SMS texts were secret, and that email was very secure and all of this. And, the reason that they gave actually for that was because banks use it, banks use it to send notifications, and if my bank is communicating with me in this medium, it must be secure because my bank wouldn't use an insecure medium. So it's part of it is also, like, they assume that they can trust these institutions to know what they should be using and they kind of shift that burden, onto them and then it turns out to be very wrong.
[00:18:35] Unknown:
Would you say that the but I and at least in my experience, like what I've noticed is a lot of people kind of they're kind of aware that they that that they're at risk, that they have these concerns but it's not until they actually get burned that they start to try and improve their setup. Would you agree with that? Like people touching the stove is probably the the number one way they start to improve their their current situation,
[00:19:00] Unknown:
privacy wise? I agree. I agree that, that is often number one way that, like, that's where the major shift usually happens. I don't think that that's how it should. I I like, part of what I do with my education, like, I made a privacy course, and the recommendation I had was that people should be proactive about this because it's, part of the problem with relying on that, on this, like, sudden change as a result of catastrophe. In a way, it's it's very hard to then do, like, a speed run of the education in a way where you're doing it properly. Whereas if you're proactive about it and you prepare before a catastrophe happens, then you not only have more time to absorb the information, you implement everything correctly, and you're not under a huge amount of stress.
[00:19:49] Unknown:
Right.
[00:19:50] Unknown:
So I definitely encourage people, like, you know, yes, you haven't had a data breach yet, you haven't had an identity theft yet, you haven't had money stolen from you yet, but here's the ways in which it could happen based on what you're currently doing. And you do not want to start fixing these holes. Once the hole gets so big that, you know, you you have no choice
[00:20:15] Unknown:
but to do it. The time to fix the ship isn't when it's sinking. Yeah.
[00:20:19] Unknown:
Like, it was You'll probably panic and sink. Yeah. Like, you might survive, but, it's it's not fun to be learning under pressure that way. So I encourage people to be proactive even though that's also difficult because it takes time. You're not fully aware of the incentives at the or the, like, the reasons to do it at the beginning. But I think it's I think it's healthier and easier to start now and do it slowly than to have to rapidly go through it later.
[00:20:54] Unknown:
Let's pull it back a little bit. So when when did you start, when did you decide you wanted to be an independent journalist focused on privacy and what was the reason for that? What was the triggering moment where you realized, you know, privacy is is this, you know, insanely important topic in today's age?
[00:21:16] Unknown:
I mean, that's quite a long story. I mean, I I would say initially as when I was a lot younger, I was almost a technophobe. I Really? Because I actually I I enjoy the outdoors. I very much like, low tech stuff, for as long as I can remember. And so when it came to things like, anything to do with the Internet when I was younger, I was actually one of the people who was like, I'm gonna use this as minimally as the minimal amount, that I need to, because I I was part of a generation that I'm constantly getting talked, given propaganda about how there's all these online predators Right. To come after you.
You can get infected with viruses, and malware, and all of this. And when I was younger, it was, like, an onslaught of, like, information about threats. And I think for most of my life, I've been very sensitive to that. If I get in for information about something that could possibly harm me, then I kind of try to avoid it. And so for a long time, I actually had very little interest in, like, high anything high-tech. And so I and but that was because I cared about privacy. Like, I didn't I didn't want I wanted to avoid harm. That was it was harm reduction. But then it got to a point, especially with, around 2013, the uprisings and everything and WikiLeaks and how they were using all this, wasn't super new at the time, but, like, using technology in new ways to do journalism, and it was super effective for, like, the number of people that were involved.
The number of publications they did was massive compared to what most journalists produce year on year. So I saw that, and I basically switched to okay. I also want to do this kind of work. I'll have to use this technology. And instead of just avoiding it and being a bit of a technophobe, I would embrace it, but also figure out how it worked so that I could still protect myself from threats that I perceived. But I've always been I think I've always been a private person. Part of that is because I didn't grow up in a city. So just naturally, you know, I would look out my window and I wouldn't see neighbors, because there would be trees, like, a lot a lot of obscurity. And so just in my my surrounding environment, I had a lot of privacy, and I think people who grow up in the city, because they're not used to that, they just kind of get used to the opposite. They're constantly surrounded by people. They can hear their neighbors. They can see their neighbors, and everybody's in a confined space.
Their expectation for privacy is lower, and I think that that extends to, a lot of times the Internet as well and social media. And I was the opposite. I was very, I restricted that and I still am today, but I've come to a bit of a better balance in terms of using the technology to,
[00:24:31] Unknown:
pursue my goals rather than avoiding it. What would you say to people who do not think privacy is something they should consider? Like why, what would you say to people that don't don't think privacy is important?
[00:24:47] Unknown:
I I would first point out the ways in which I actually think they do care about privacy, they just maybe don't realize that they do, and that if those things went away that they would probably hate it. Like, most people are okay with having curtains on their window and closing them at night, so that, you know, especially in a city where you can often see through, your neighbors windows, people are okay with that, like, there's this, an assumed, I mean, we wear clothes that is a reflection of us wanting to have some privacy with our body. And there's a lot of variation in that, but most people go around wearing clothes, and that's, you know, that's an example of privacy of the body and, you know, now with facial recognition, we have to deal with not only just people that are actually in our vicinity seeing us, we have to deal with people in a data center far away, not only seeing us in the moment, but having a record of that all the time.
And I don't think people have fully understood the implications of that, of having a record of every place you go at all times. I think part of that is because, example in this country, it's, there's a lot of, there's, not really a lot of political repression and so people aren't worried about the the state having that surveillance on them. I mean, there's not too much CCTV here, but there are some cameras, And, yeah, it's I think I was actually saying this to someone last night that the problem with, countries like Norway and a lot of other countries when they explore new technology, they they celebrate it. Right.
And part of the reason they celebrate it is because they're not necessarily worried that anyone in their environment is going to abuse that technology to harm them. Whereas if you go to other places in the world where that's not the case, that new technology can be used to, surveil and, repress people. So if you don't have the restraint in your, in your, political environment where those abuses can't happen, then then you become much more aware of how available privacy is.
[00:27:17] Unknown:
Clearly, like, this is not this is not the type of clothes that you wear on a daily basis. Most people I I imagine a lot of people who are watching this use social media. They post pictures of themselves, their family, their friends all the time. Many different sites, many different services, you know, maybe they have a a ring doorbell camera that sends video of them to Amazon servers every time they enter their house or their office. To why why do you value just not disclosing your face? Why do you keep your face private? What would you say to those people of, you know, to explain what your stance is in that regard?
[00:28:00] Unknown:
The reason I mean, I I mean, part of it is just I was I was never really a fan of taking pictures of myself in general. But the reason, especially in the last couple of years where I've tried very hard, it's kind of a paradox where I'm a privacy advocate, but I also am trying to be a public speaker, and I did not I did not anticipate many years ago that I was gonna be a public speaker. So it's definitely a tricky thing to do where you're in the public eye and trying to share ideas, but there's this expectation that you also share your identity, and in a in a physical way, not just in your ideas.
And I I think it definitely conflicts, I think, with, my generation in particular, but people in general is that a lot of people, they not only like doing that, but they have they have this desire to be famous. Like, they would they would like to wake up one day and see their name or their face in a paper and being celebrated. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, to to want acceptance and praise for, who you are. But, at some level, that can also be really detrimental because if you ask a lot of famous people, you know, if if they could go back and change something what would they do? A lot of them say they would try to have more privacy.
That's the thing that they actually want the most because oftentimes their home address is known by everyone. If they go to a restaurant, they get photographed. If they get into a relationship, everybody knows within a couple minutes. And they just constantly feel on edge because on one hand you get you have the benefit of this praise and this, admiration, but on the reverse, it can also turn into revulsion and anger, and judgment, and they definitely don't want that. And it often limits who they can become. And so for me personally, I like to be able to walk down the street anywhere and not be recognized.
Unfortunately, I do get recognized for my voice, but I solve that by just not talking. I like to be able to just walk down the street and nobody knows me, and the only way that people will know me is if they already know me, or if I want them to get to know me. Otherwise, like, it it it gives me that choice, and I also don't given that I am a public speaker, I also don't want to be in a position where I don't I don't know if I will ever be famous famous, but I never wanna be in a position where I feel like I have to pigeonhole myself because I'm worried about, people getting angry at me and coming after me for the opinions that I have. Like, I wanna be able to speak as freely as possible.
And that's also why I want to use Bitcoin because I want to also be able to spend my money as freely as possible and not be limited by the policies that any given bank has or a payment processor or what have you. So they're kind of related, but, yeah, I just I want to keep that freedom. And so I hide my face because,
[00:31:30] Unknown:
I feel like that actually gives me more freedom. Like, to be clear, you're not wearing that mask to protect from disease.
[00:31:37] Unknown:
No. I mean, I I'm Yeah. I'm not worried about disease because I'm a quite I'm quite a healthy person. I did not get COVID once this entire pandemic. So no, I'm not worried about disease. So, I mean, it is very convenient though. I don't know how I I am tempted to actually keep wearing masks, just because it's anti sort of anti facial recognition, but, unfortunately, I think a lot of the systems have gotten smarter where they're now If you're wearing a mask, they're looking at, like your eyebrows or your forehead. The nose is shaking. Yeah. So the mask isn't, which is why I have 2.
[00:32:17] Unknown:
I mean that was an interesting that was an interesting situation with the COVID response just in general because in a lot of places wearing masks was either illegal or like borderline criminalized. And I know in New York like there's a law in the books that like 2 people can't be together,
[00:32:34] Unknown:
wearing a mask at the same time. Yeah, very, very interesting flip where suddenly it became a crime to not, not, not cover your face. But personally,
[00:32:44] Unknown:
you know, I've, as, as a public privacy advocate myself I've obviously wrestled with the same, trade offs that that you were just discussing. I've often been called a hypocrite, for for being a public privacy advocate, as if you can't be both public and pro privacy at the same time. Personally, I do regret, some days I wake up in the morning and I regret that I exposed my face, that my face is known. One of the things is you can't ever go back,
[00:33:19] Unknown:
once that happens. Yeah. Actually, before I came here I was talking to someone about what I did and when I mentioned that I don't have any pictures of me online, then they asked, oh, how did you get them all taken down? Right. And my response was I never put them up in the first place.
[00:33:36] Unknown:
What would you say to the people that say public figures that advocate for privacy are hypocrites?
[00:33:45] Unknown:
I I don't I don't think it's hypocritical. I mean, it may it depends. I think it's a scale, but I I don't think it's hypocritical because, for me, privacy is about consent. And, I mean, even though you may regret that you also have a public face as well. I mean, you did choose. You weren't forced to do that, even if maybe you regret your decision. And I think continuing to do it is also a choice. And so for me, privacy is about consent and, I think a lot of people have the idea that, I'm not exactly representing the contrary, but a lot of people have the idea that, privacy is about, you know, completely obscuring yourself and hiding.
And people can do that. I think it's a scale though, based on your choices and your threat model and the way you want to live your life. And I think you should always have the option to go at different points of the scale, but I don't think it's invalid for someone to have a public face and post pictures, but also care about privacy. I don't think that invalidates it because you can have a public face and still be private about where you live and what you're doing and where you're spending your money. There's a lot of people who have all of those things and have very little privacy.
So I think, as long as you're working towards it in other areas of your life, if if the way you're living makes you happy and you feel like you have a lot of freedom and you can do what you wanna do, then maybe it's okay to sacrifice privacy in some areas, and that's not a detriment to your life. I don't know if sharing, my face publicly also would be a detriment to my life, but because I don't I'm not sure of the consequences. I'm just being cautious about that. But no, I don't think it's I don't think it's hypocrisy.
[00:35:41] Unknown:
So, I mean, one of the things in the privacy circles that a lot of people talk about is this this almost a meme now, I don't care about privacy because I have nothing to hide. But what I've noticed more myself, through my education at first in talking to people is that in today's age what I see more is people are using lots of social media, you know, they have they have their assistant devices which are basically like wire taps that are connected in their home, they send their DNA places and they say to me, Matt, I'm already screwed, there's there's there's nothing I can do to improve my situation.
What would you say to those people?
[00:36:25] Unknown:
I would recommend them a book called Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell because he actually goes through a lot of he actually, like, makes guides about how to, remove yourself from the Internet, even if you use things like Amazon and stuff. He shows you the opt out policies, the data deletion policies, which it may not be perfect, but you definitely can do it to a degree. So I wouldn't say that, there's very few things where there's a point of no return where you can't reverse them or improve them. So I definitely I don't think that that's a good argument, because, if it was, if it was that hard to do, we wouldn't see so much censorship on the Internet.
We see stuff getting taken down all the time, things getting lost. So, there definitely are ways to,
[00:37:22] Unknown:
delete yourself from the Internet. You can always improve your situation. Yeah. It's not a lost cause. Yeah.
[00:37:29] Unknown:
And even if you can't, you can also, you know, change your life, move to a different location, and start fresh. And if you learn about the ways that, you cannot do those things again, that's an improvement even if, you know, the the version of you that lived in the previous place that you lived is fully doxed. You can go somewhere else and still get a sense of safety and privacy, even if your former life doesn't have that.
[00:37:58] Unknown:
So one of the things that, always intrigued me about you is you're very publicly proud about not carrying a cell phone. Why don't you carry a cell phone? Everybody carries a cell phone.
[00:38:10] Unknown:
Yeah. So again, this is kind of, sort of related to being a technophobe. I was one of those weird kids that, it was when it was becoming popular for, you know, teenagers to have cell phones. I was not interested in having a cell phone at all. My parents actually kind of forced it on me, because they needed a way to communicate with me. So I have I have used phones, I've used dumb phones, I actually still, I've I've had so few phones in my life that I still have in my possession all of the phones that I've ever used. So I have used them, but I've used them in very limited degrees.
Part of that is actually not to do with privacy. It's to do with kind of the the patterns of behavior that you get into when you have a smartphone and you're relying on it for everything all the time. For example, I've never had the experience of laying in bed and reading something on my phone or watching something. I've I've just never used a phone in bed, at all. It's not the first thing that I look at when I wake up. I when I go out to eat places or go shopping or meet with people, I am not carrying a phone. I try to prearrange plans, and I, I've become very good at navigating without, using any kind of Internet connected device to help me. I use maps. I use my memory.
[00:39:44] Unknown:
I will You use the actual paper maps?
[00:39:47] Unknown:
I haven't used paper max paper maps, very much. Part of that is because if you're a person who's walking around carrying a paper map, you get quickly targeted by people who want to help you, because they think that you're a lost tourist. So I would actually recommend, to people who, if they want to stop using phones, but they need something to help with navigation, I actually recommend getting, like, a car, like an auto GPS device because a lot of them look like really chunky smartphones, but it has a limited function. It tells you where you are and where you want to it helps you get to where you want to go. So you can go around carrying a device that will help you navigate, and it looks like a smartphone, so you won't look like a lost tourist. You'll look like everyone else who is using Google Maps to, walk around.
So And it doesn't have an Internet connection. It's not tracking you. I mean it might, but, like, it's very limited. It's, like, only telling
[00:40:48] Unknown:
you about location. Well, I know, like, the dedicated garments don't Yeah. Like, the maps are preloaded.
[00:40:55] Unknown:
Yeah. You can preload. Yeah. You can preload the maps and yeah. So, to, yeah, get back to the main thread. Part of the reason I don't use smartphones is just because I don't want to I I don't wanna constantly be getting notifications. I don't want because I've want a part I've tried to actually learn what is the experience of, like, a person who does rely on their phone and then goes without it. And it's usually, like, digital detox videos. And a lot of people say that they're even scared to walk out of their own house without a smartphone because they think that they'll get lost on the way. And if they don't have their smartphone, then they'll they'll not be able to find their way home. And I find that, I find that amazing because I've never I've never had that fear. Like, I part of it is just I prepare so much, but also I just have a good understanding of my surroundings. So if I do get lost, I know, okay, I can walk to a train station. Train stations have, like, area maps. I can use the area maps to get back to where I'm familiar with the territory.
And so, like, navigation is one example where I I I don't want to rely on a smartphone to be telling me, that information where without it, I am like I'm like a,
[00:42:18] Unknown:
it may, it basically makes me super vulnerable. You would say it's like a com, it's a combination of, privacy reasons and not wanting to be dependent on it, you don't wanna have this dependence on this
[00:42:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's it's not just, yeah, it's not just technology either, I'm, like, in my daily life, I try to, with my with my diet, I I don't I avoid alcohol and drugs and basically my only, I would say, addiction is probably sugar dependency because I can definitely feel when I haven't had sugar.
[00:42:54] Unknown:
What about caffeine?
[00:42:55] Unknown:
I do not drink coffee. No. I don't drink coffee. I drink alcohol occasionally, but, I used that was only since, recently. Before that, I never had it. And, that's kind of in the same category if I'm trying to avoid having dependencies where, I need to have something or it affects my mood or my energy level. And so that's all kind of in the same territory. The the privacy reasons for not having a smartphone is a very long list, because, smartphones have so many things in them that you do not control. The hardware is unless you have, like, an open source phone, where you can actually take it apart and see how it functions. There is so much happening with smartphones, that is detrimental to your privacy. Like, every time you unlock your phone, it's notifying if you have an Android phone. It's like notifying Google about your, your location, I think.
And, it was once said that smartphones are basically tracking devices that make phone calls. Right. So I I've there are ways that you can use a smartphone in a privacy preserving way to a degree, But it's it's, it's I think it's much harder than, doing that with a laptop. So I avoid smartphones as much as possible.
[00:44:32] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, it seems to me that you grew up with a lot of these values. I mean, that you did you weren't posting pictures on social media. You weren't using a smartphone at a young age. When we see kids these days, well I sound like such an old man kids these days. You see a lot of kids come in, they're using social media, they're using assistance, you know, voice assistance, they're using iPads. You go you go to dinner, you see a kid with an iPad at at 2 years old, 3 years old. It seems to me that it's a it's a troubling trend. Do you are are you concerned by that? Do do you ever feel that it's maybe a lost cause these the the work you do?
And how do you how do you battle with that? Like how do you battle with the frustration of of of this new generation coming basically directly into the surveillance economy?
[00:45:26] Unknown:
Yeah. It's especially difficult with children because, I mean their parents often are at an age where they didn't have that much access to technology when they were children, and so they don't understand the effects that that much technology use at a young age will affect their children. I'm not and I'm definitely not opposed to kids using smartphones or tablets if the purpose of it is, for example, education. Like, there are some great educational apps that, are that can, you know, help them learn things in a very interactive and fun way. But I think that a lot of kids are not using, these devices for education.
Their parents give them these devices because it's a good distraction. It's a digital babysitter. It's a way for them to often not engage with their children. And the scary part is a lot of the time they don't even have an awareness of who else their children are engaging with when they're using, social media, even these apps. I've seen some of the the the ads that play for mobile games. They are incredibly disturbing. I recommend, like, if you're if you're a person who's never done mobile gaming, I recommend looking up the kinds of ads that play for mobile games. They are they are scary.
And I, you know, if I've seen them just by looking up, like, examples, then I can imagine that kids who are playing these games are seeing them. Because, like, a lot of these games, you you click a button to say, yeah, I'm 18 years old. But of course, there's no proof. Right. Every kid's gonna click that button. Yeah. And I don't know if there should be proof. I don't think it should be the responsibility of the game developer to verify a child's age. I think parents should be responsible and, like, have a good communication with their child, about what kinds of content they're engaging with. And when a kid gets to a certain age, of course, then it becomes more their choice, and they may might make mistakes. But when you're dealing with a child who does not understand the consequences of their actions, it really is the parent's responsibility, and children do not understand the consequences of constantly staring at a screen for hours on end every day.
And it's one thing for an adult to do that, and we kind of have an awareness of how that can affect your mental health as an adult. But when you have a developing child, brain, that probably even had like, the effects are probably of an even greater magnitude. So I'm definitely going to be the type of parent that, like, I I I don't wanna be the type of parent that says, no, you absolutely can't use this, and I just never provide it to them. I would explain to them, you know, the dangers of, the technology that they want to use. If they want to use it, maybe they won't. Maybe maybe I'll pass on some privacy genes or something.
But, I definitely would explain to them, like, here here's the reason. I like, for any kind of rules that I would have for my kids, I would explain why I have the rules that I do, and, you know, explain that it's about safety and, you know, you'll to at some to some degree, you have to say you'll understand someday because you can't explain everything to them. But, yeah, I'm definitely worried about the the current trend of, kids using this technology. And you you can definitely tell that you can definitely tell that the people who make it are aware of this, because people are constantly mentioning, like, the the children of, like, the social media CEOs Right. Aren't letting that they're not allowed to use this stuff.
And that definitely, like, tells you that they're aware that it can have negative effects.
[00:49:29] Unknown:
What would you say what would you say to parents that say, you know, we're living in an increasing digital world. They don't want to, you know, put their kids at a disadvantage by keeping them away from technology.
[00:49:42] Unknown:
Yeah. That's the other side is, I mean, a lot of the time it's not even coming from the parents anymore, it's coming from the schools. A lot of the schools are requiring, like they're they're using Google systems to do, like, email and document sharing. Right. And so a lot of the pressure is also coming from the schools, and the parents are being forced into it because we don't a lot of places don't have school choice, which, you know, that's an aspect of it. And, there's also countries where you're not even allowed to homeschool or do any kind of alternative schooling, which is something that I also care about. I I definitely think it's important to have a choice in not only where your child gets educated, but the kind of education that they are exposed to because I think, I've done a lot of research about education systems and how effective they are, and especially in the US where it's very age restricted, and kind of assumes that because you're this age, you should be learning these things and going at this pace. It really doesn't make sense. I think education should be much more individualized, to the child and that children should be given more freedom to decide actually what they're interested in and pursue that.
But, yeah, back to privacy. Yeah. Children are really disadvantaged privacy wise because of the education system. Like, all of their school work, all of their learning is often happening on systems that are surveilled and part of the reason is because schools want to surveil children and make sure they're doing their homework, because, the parent like, the parents or the community hasn't instilled in these kids. Oftentimes, the kind of, they, like, have to kind of coerce them to get the work done. They're not relying on the kill the the children having values of, you know, self learning type values, which means that they try to solve that by implementing surveillance systems. And I think that, using surveillance to solve social social issues is not, a good move.
[00:52:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I a a lot of times I'm very grateful that, you know, we were both born in a time where, surveillance, at least digital surveillance wasn't so all encompassing. You know, now kids are just born basically into surveillance. They've never known anything else. Especially with the pandemic and everything being on Zoom. Oh, that was just, like, super acceleration there. And now they're talking about,
[00:52:30] Unknown:
if this, you know, if this happens again, if they keep doing this, then they're they're gonna try and implement, like, software with Zoom or any of these other platforms where they actually check, like, they read the the child's, like, expression, their their face, and to see if they're, like, paying attention. So they're, yeah, I, duh, I I don't like that road at all. The pandemic definitely accelerated a bunch of things with surveillance and education that I don't like. It's so interesting because those types of stories are
[00:53:05] Unknown:
it's like it's 2 fold. It's both it makes you frustrated, when you work in the privacy space but it also At least to me it it reaffirms why it's so important to to keep pushing forward and to keep trying to, at least, at the very least improve education on that front. So we have, this free Assange cape behind us in frame. Why is this case important to you?
[00:53:29] Unknown:
I mean, in short, the case is important to me because, I mean, it it's had such an impact on my life that, I don't think I don't think I would be sitting here or on stage at Oslo Freedom Forum, in 2 days. I don't think I would be at either of those places without, his work because, I definitely did not grow up in an environment where, you know, being interested in that kind of stuff was encouraged or even acknowledged really. I was very self motivated to learn more about it and support it. And I think, I mean, this is also a very critical time because, not very long ago, it became the date where the home secretary in the UK can, announce whether she approves or rejects the extradition request from the US.
And, if she does approve it, that's not the end of the game because they can still appeal in the court system in the UK, and then they can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which the UK is still beholden to even though they've left the European Union. So it's a very critical time right now because there's been a lot of protests about, that decision because I think it still is important. And but the whole thing is unfortunate in general because he shouldn't actually even be in Belmarsh prison right now because he technically won the case. And most people when, you know, they win a case and then it's being appealed by either side, they are mandated to, you know, stay within the state, but they're not in prison.
And the fact that he's in a maximum security prison when he isn't even accused of a violent crime is insane. Like, he's sharing cells with people who have been accused or convicted of terrorism. It's it's it it makes no sense from, a criminal justice point of view. It also especially doesn't make sense because the work that he did exposed crime by very powerful states and people around the world. And so if anyone should be in prison, it's the people that he exposed, not him.
[00:55:57] Unknown:
What would you what would you say to people who say that him his work, Assange's work with WikiLeaks and leaking documents, should be considered a criminal act?
[00:56:14] Unknown:
I would say that they I mean, for 1, the work that he did wasn't actually so different from the work that national security journalists and a ton of other journalists do already. The only difference is that most of them don't usually publish original source documents. They do sometimes, but not at this volume. And most people see that as somehow a worse form of journalism, but I've always appreciated journalists who publish their sources because it gives the reader the opportunity to verify the information for themselves and not have to trust the person who has, you know, put it through their own personal filter.
Like, I I value the opinion much more of people who say this is my interpretation of this information, But if you don't agree with that, you can look at the source documents yourself, and maybe I got it wrong. Maybe it says something else. Maybe the the impact of it is different. I would also say that the, one of the allegations that was made is that the release of those documents caused harm. And both in the trial for Chelsea or the court martial for Chelsea Manning, that happened many years ago. And even now, this case in the UK, there was opportunities for the US government to make the case, give evidence that harm was caused as a result of these disclosures, they could not cite a single person. I think in the UK trial, they gave an example of someone having to move.
They had to, like, move out of the country or something. That was their reasoning. Yeah. But no no physical harm. No one died. They did not provide a single example of anyone getting harm. On the other side, what the documents reveal is massive harm, massive carnage, that we would not even know about without these documents because the US government and other states, were actively hiding this information. We would not have any idea of the civilian casualties from all of the wars that are being waged. We wouldn't have an idea of the corruption involved. And I think the idea that we would try to point our finger at someone like him and say you've caused harm but we have no evidence of this and ignore the the evidence of the harm that has actually happened, is, I think it's it's simply dishonest because the person is kind of presenting this argument usually, implying that they care about people being harmed. And my response is if you care about people being harmed, you would actually look at the data.
You would actually look at the source material and see what it tells you, not try to basically put him outside the political tent of journalism, which means that he can be put in prison for exposing crime, having harmed no one.
[00:59:31] Unknown:
Janine, I wanna thank you again for joining us. If you could say one thing to someone who may not really, understand the importance of privacy and freedom in their lives, what would it be?
[00:59:44] Unknown:
Well, I think going on for the last question, part of the reason that, I wanted to have this here today, especially if they also have freedom for them because I'm gonna be wearing it as a cape, is because the woman, who came up with the term cypherpunk, Jude Millen, also known as Saint Jude, she wrote for the original Wired magazine before it was called Wired magazine. In 1993, she said, another caped nerd for peace, justice, and privacy, and I've always liked that phrase. And so part of the reason I, I'm going to wear this as a cape is because I'm kind of playing on that slogan. And there's this phrase that we hear all the time, not all heroes wear capes.
And so I would say, also not all nerds wear capes. And these days, a lot of a lot of heroes instead of wearing capes, they're wearing prison jumpsuits. And if part of the foundation of justice, is that you speak up for those who can't speak for themselves, then, I want to wear this as a message that I will be or I will always try to be one of those people.
[01:01:00] Unknown:
Awesome. Thanks, Janine. Really appreciate it.
Janine Rome is a cyberpunk journalist and Bitcoin privacy educator. She publishes a newsletter titled This Month in Bitcoin Privacy, writing about privacy related technology developments, events, and conversations in Bitcoin, as well as the tools and strategies that can be used to protect our right to informational self determination. Well, Janine, thank you for for joining us. I'm very excited for, this conversation. So, to get started, where wait, when you think about when you think about freedom, what is what does freedom mean to you?
[00:00:46] Unknown:
Freedom mean, so I have there there's a song that I like that I've actually used the lyrics. I plan to use the lyrics eventually for podcasts. It's by Kings of Convenience, and they say, I can't remember what they say. Freedom freedom is no greater than its owner, no view is wider than the eye, and I really like that lyric. A lot a lot of I think it's in from an album that's called, declaration of dependence, and it's kind of about how, I mean, I think what the album is about is that, I think it's all American singers and, we we like to think that we're independent, but we actually have a lot of dependencies on things that, can often take away our freedom.
One of those, of course, I think, is the monetary system. Like, I mean, for the most part, I've lived in countries where there's a relatively high amount of economic freedom, especially when it comes to, any anything to do with religion or reading texts, or more recently, sexuality, like, that's relatively free, and there's a lot of places in the world where that isn't the case. And I think money is very important for that because if you're not able to economically support yourself, if you're not able to associate with others in terms of forming businesses, or choosing what products to buy or services to use, then effectively it becomes very hard to be yourself or express yourself.
And so if you have a monetary system where your choices affect whether you are even able to use money at all, or if you're restricted to only using it for certain things, even if they cause no harm whatsoever to anyone else, then I think your freedom in so many other ways is restricted. Like, you your freedom of speech is impacted, your freedom of association is impacted. All of those things, to some level come back to money. We've seen that with, you know, cancel culture recently, which, I think some of it can be legitimate, when it's challenging people of power who have not been held to account. Like, some of it is a form of boycotting that's basically being applied to individuals.
But I think in a lot of cases, especially when the the allegations aren't based on solid evidence, Essentially, what people are doing is, mass dis a disassociation, and, you know, we can say, well, they all have the freedom to do that, and of course, I agree if they don't want to give money to someone, that's fine. But, if that happens on such a scale where a person is basically excluded from the economy, maybe even they get their bank account shut down, depending on what the allegation is, then, effectively, they can't live. And I've heard from people who have experienced this personally, and a lot of them say, I think there was even a book by John Rawlinson, where he interviewed someone and they basically said, who had experienced this kind of backlash, and he said, basically these people just want me to disappear and go away, they want me to die without actually saying that.
And he he also said something interesting where it's like, they want to use me as a cultural reference for, like, what you shouldn't do. So freedom to me is that, while you should obviously be able to express your dislike for people who you think have done, harm to others, you should also have ways to protect yourself against that being used, for example, political censorship, because that is also happening. And I think people need to be more careful, you know, we've I think there's a lot of responsibility in having freedom as well. For example, recently with the Wasabi blacklisting, which was very unfortunate, someone who is a contributor made the argument that, Wasabi is within the right to do this, Right. Because they own the server, he was making a property rights argument. And I don't I don't disagree with that. I don't think anyone was saying, like, that Wasabi doesn't have the right to do what they did. They own the server.
They're offering the service. They can choose not to or to change it. And they do have the right, but that doesn't mean just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean that other people won't, be impacted by it, won't dislike it, and they have to take that into account. So freedom is, I think, when you're living in a complex society, it's really a constant negotiation, where you should be able to express yourself and get the things that you need and want, but you also have to deal with everyone else around you who is trying to do the same thing, and sometimes that conflicts. So it's a constant negotiation.
It's very much affected by your economic power, and it's affected by the political situation that you find yourself in, and how much you are contributing to that system.
[00:06:08] Unknown:
That makes a lot of sense to me. I you know, you are a independent journalist focused on privacy and freedom. I have a lot of respect for your work. It's an honor to call you a friend and to have you here speaking with me. When you you hit an interesting point there where you mentioned that we have the benefit of living in in relatively free countries, and get to enjoy a good amount of freedom. When you talk to people and you're, you know, in your writing how do you, how do you frame to them? How do you make it make them understand or help them understand, the importance of freedom and how, you know, people in other countries how how they're dealing with it, right? Like how do you get people to relate to it? Because that's something I've noticed that is very very difficult to do, most people just have blinders on.
[00:07:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, in my experience I find it I find it harder to con to talk to people or convince them of the value of freedom when they already live with it in abundance. Right. And they don't appreciate it necessarily. I don't really have to convince people who are living in places where they don't have it, that they need it because they already want it. Even if they don't consciously they're not consciously thinking about it, I think every day they're aware of, to some degree what what else might be out there that they don't have access to, and that they want to experience it, but for various reasons they can't, like, I mean, also one of the benefits of living in a country that has a lot of freedom is that you not only have freedom in that place, you have privileges that you can, take to other places, you can have a lot, you can, a lot of these countries have visa fee travel or very limited visa restrictions to go to other parts of the world where conversely, people in those countries that they visit can't visit their country or it's very hard to do.
So it's also it's very much tied, like, your your freedom is not only within the area that you are that has a relatively high amount of freedom, it's also the the political privilege that you carry with you, with your, you know, national identity documents.
[00:08:28] Unknown:
So, I mean, there's a massive disconnect there. Right? There there there is a group of people, who the importance of freedom is very obvious to them, and those are those are people that generally live in less free countries. And then there's a group of people that they don't even really think about it. And is is that disconnect ever gonna be solved? Is that a solvable disconnect? Is or is that just, you know, something that we just have to live with when when we work in this space?
[00:08:57] Unknown:
I definitely think there's a disconnect, I've noticed, especially when it comes to money, like, I've been to so many places where you go in and they just assume you have, you have bank cards. Right. I actually went to a cafe once, I think it was in the UK, and I walked in and I tried to get something with cash because I'm very much a cash based, person. I pretty much do all of my transactions in cash, unless I have no other option. And I went to this cafe and I wanted to purchase something and he said, nope. We only take cards. I said, because at the time I actually didn't have a bank card that would work in the UK, and I said that, and he said, are you a refugee?
And on one hand I found that kind of insulting because I thought, well, if I am, you're saying that you wouldn't take my money, you, like, I I'm at a, you know, disadvantaged position, and you wouldn't take my money, but then on the other hand, I also thought, well, do I have to be one for you to respect my choice, or maybe it's not even my choice? I mean, for me, it's at the time, in that instance, it wasn't a choice. I only had cash, but usually I do have a choice between cash or bank cards, and I always choose cash, because I prefer that, but a lot of people use cash because that is their only choice. They get paid in cash for whatever reason, they can't get a bank account or it's very expensive to use, So he not only wasn't he or him or his business wasn't respecting my choice, but, Yeah. I found that interesting. And, yeah, I think there's a lot of disconnect in the financial sector where they, and especially in countries where it's becoming more and more the case that they assume that you already have these things, that they expect that that will always be the case, and that will be good, and that will never be used against us.
And that's part of why, we have this CBDC panel coming up that, I assume part of what we're going to say is that, well, we, we already see what's happening with the financial system as it is and the restrictions they're putting on it. Why would we give them even more power to restrict us, especially when they basically give lip service to privacy, but they don't they haven't demonstrated that they actually care about it in any way. Like, what they're doing what they're doing trying to get rid of cash, what they're doing with increasing, AML, legislation, which is really clamping down on, and increasing the need for identification at every level. They're demonstrating that they don't want to give more privacy or even keep the same level of privacy that we have now, and I think they don't understand how dangerous that is.
The biggest disconnect that I've learned about recently is, like, the extent to which a lot of this anti money laundering policy has literally no effect whatsoever on money laundering around the world. There's a ton of papers now that shows that the amount that the amount of, like, criminal proceeds that they're capturing is, like, 1% or less. And there was even a paper, I think, by the United Nations. I think it was the Office of Drugs and Crime. They published it way back in 2011. And they they had an excellent line in there where they were like, our our money launderer is so much smarter than drug dealers, the because they made this point that, like, we're capturing a lot more of the drugs around the world than we are this laundered money. Are the money launderers so much smarter than drug dealers, or there is there something wrong with this system?
And it's unfortunate because not only is it super ineffective, but it's keeping a lot of people out of the financial system because they're putting up these barriers.
[00:12:49] Unknown:
Do you think that does that even matter, the logic that it doesn't doesn't work to stop criminals? Do do you think those those laws are actually there to stop criminals, or are they there to surveil the broader population? Is it just an excuse with the criminal side? Yeah, I mean, I, I mean I don't know, I haven't met too many people,
[00:13:07] Unknown:
personally in the field to say whether in their heart of hearts, they actually think it's effective. But no. I I I think to some degree, they must know that it doesn't work, and, you know, whether whether it's effective or not, maybe it would be super effective, and I would still think that they were there were costs to it, which was financial exclusion,
[00:13:26] Unknown:
but given that it's definitely not working, and then we also have the financial exclusion, it's a super it's a really bad deal. But I feel like if you talk to a lot of them, they would say, okay. So let's we should collect even more information. We should put up even more barriers.
[00:13:41] Unknown:
Right? Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't know how they could collect even I mean, they they could, but at that point, I mean, there's something to be said for, like, there's a reason that we don't do this with cash. There was another paper that I read that I think no. It's the same. It was actually a paper, financials it was called Financial Surveillance, Who Cares? And it was about, essentially, like, the kind of the the adverse reaction to anti money laundering policy, and, like, where is it coming from, what are the arguments, It was kind of just a summary of that. So like, with with cash,
[00:14:19] Unknown:
we were you were talking earlier about you went into a store, they didn't accept cash. Right? And I so I see, I see in America and I see among my peers a push away from cash. Both from on the business side, but also just like on the user side. A lot of people choose convenience of they like their payment apps, they like their credit cards. A lot of people I went to school with choose not to use cash. They prefer not to use cash. Do you think as a global society cash is dying? Is cash is cash gonna be short lived in this world? And a world without cash, what does that world look like to you?
[00:14:58] Unknown:
I definitely think cash is dying in certain parts of the world. I I've deliberately chosen to live in places where I think still 50% or more of the transactions are made in cash, and I think there are many parts of the world where it will take much much longer, if it happens at all, to transition of cash just because you have a large older generation who doesn't who isn't up to switching. You also just have a lot of distrust in the the government, the system in general that they don't even want to use it because they're suspicious of it. I think that was happening to a degree in El Salvador, even with bitcoin, like, because they went through dollarization before that and didn't The results of that for a lot of people weren't that great, and they kind of suspected that Bitcoin would have a similar effect. So there's a lot of resistance initially, especially given that the government was involved in promoting bitcoin. Right.
Yeah. I think I think a big part of the reason that people are a lot of people are sort of voluntarily transition transitioning away from cash on their own is because, the the the people that build the digital financial system, they try very hard to make sure that the costs of that are hidden from you. For example, most people aren't aware of the huge amount of data that is collected about them just so that they can use a credit card. Right. They're not aware of how the credit system works and how it can be very toxic. And I think if people were more aware of those costs, if it was more clear to them, then they might change their mind.
That's actually been a case with privacy for people who don't. Right. They're not they don't value privacy or they're not sure what they should do about it. Once you show them the cost of not doing something, then they, there's kind of a paradox where peep a lot of people say they care about privacy, but in practice they don't do that much about it. But once you, that was initially that was assumed like, it was assumed that the reason for that is because people were basically lying about how much they valued privacy. Right. But the reality was that they just didn't actually understand how the systems they were using worked. Like, they thought they were using them properly. They thought they did care somewhat about their privacy, and they were doing it in the right way. And then once someone showed them, well, no, this is what you're doing, this is how it's harming you, here's a better way to do it, then they actually did it. So it was actually just a it was a question of education. It's an education short full. Yeah. A lot of a lot of this is just education. Like, there's a paper, I think, in 2017 that I wrote about where, it was like misconceptions people had about privacy and, like, about things like email and SMS texting.
And even in 2017 or 2016, whenever they did the survey, most people were still under the impression that SMS texts were secret, and that email was very secure and all of this. And, the reason that they gave actually for that was because banks use it, banks use it to send notifications, and if my bank is communicating with me in this medium, it must be secure because my bank wouldn't use an insecure medium. So it's part of it is also, like, they assume that they can trust these institutions to know what they should be using and they kind of shift that burden, onto them and then it turns out to be very wrong.
[00:18:35] Unknown:
Would you say that the but I and at least in my experience, like what I've noticed is a lot of people kind of they're kind of aware that they that that they're at risk, that they have these concerns but it's not until they actually get burned that they start to try and improve their setup. Would you agree with that? Like people touching the stove is probably the the number one way they start to improve their their current situation,
[00:19:00] Unknown:
privacy wise? I agree. I agree that, that is often number one way that, like, that's where the major shift usually happens. I don't think that that's how it should. I I like, part of what I do with my education, like, I made a privacy course, and the recommendation I had was that people should be proactive about this because it's, part of the problem with relying on that, on this, like, sudden change as a result of catastrophe. In a way, it's it's very hard to then do, like, a speed run of the education in a way where you're doing it properly. Whereas if you're proactive about it and you prepare before a catastrophe happens, then you not only have more time to absorb the information, you implement everything correctly, and you're not under a huge amount of stress.
[00:19:49] Unknown:
Right.
[00:19:50] Unknown:
So I definitely encourage people, like, you know, yes, you haven't had a data breach yet, you haven't had an identity theft yet, you haven't had money stolen from you yet, but here's the ways in which it could happen based on what you're currently doing. And you do not want to start fixing these holes. Once the hole gets so big that, you know, you you have no choice
[00:20:15] Unknown:
but to do it. The time to fix the ship isn't when it's sinking. Yeah.
[00:20:19] Unknown:
Like, it was You'll probably panic and sink. Yeah. Like, you might survive, but, it's it's not fun to be learning under pressure that way. So I encourage people to be proactive even though that's also difficult because it takes time. You're not fully aware of the incentives at the or the, like, the reasons to do it at the beginning. But I think it's I think it's healthier and easier to start now and do it slowly than to have to rapidly go through it later.
[00:20:54] Unknown:
Let's pull it back a little bit. So when when did you start, when did you decide you wanted to be an independent journalist focused on privacy and what was the reason for that? What was the triggering moment where you realized, you know, privacy is is this, you know, insanely important topic in today's age?
[00:21:16] Unknown:
I mean, that's quite a long story. I mean, I I would say initially as when I was a lot younger, I was almost a technophobe. I Really? Because I actually I I enjoy the outdoors. I very much like, low tech stuff, for as long as I can remember. And so when it came to things like, anything to do with the Internet when I was younger, I was actually one of the people who was like, I'm gonna use this as minimally as the minimal amount, that I need to, because I I was part of a generation that I'm constantly getting talked, given propaganda about how there's all these online predators Right. To come after you.
You can get infected with viruses, and malware, and all of this. And when I was younger, it was, like, an onslaught of, like, information about threats. And I think for most of my life, I've been very sensitive to that. If I get in for information about something that could possibly harm me, then I kind of try to avoid it. And so for a long time, I actually had very little interest in, like, high anything high-tech. And so I and but that was because I cared about privacy. Like, I didn't I didn't want I wanted to avoid harm. That was it was harm reduction. But then it got to a point, especially with, around 2013, the uprisings and everything and WikiLeaks and how they were using all this, wasn't super new at the time, but, like, using technology in new ways to do journalism, and it was super effective for, like, the number of people that were involved.
The number of publications they did was massive compared to what most journalists produce year on year. So I saw that, and I basically switched to okay. I also want to do this kind of work. I'll have to use this technology. And instead of just avoiding it and being a bit of a technophobe, I would embrace it, but also figure out how it worked so that I could still protect myself from threats that I perceived. But I've always been I think I've always been a private person. Part of that is because I didn't grow up in a city. So just naturally, you know, I would look out my window and I wouldn't see neighbors, because there would be trees, like, a lot a lot of obscurity. And so just in my my surrounding environment, I had a lot of privacy, and I think people who grow up in the city, because they're not used to that, they just kind of get used to the opposite. They're constantly surrounded by people. They can hear their neighbors. They can see their neighbors, and everybody's in a confined space.
Their expectation for privacy is lower, and I think that that extends to, a lot of times the Internet as well and social media. And I was the opposite. I was very, I restricted that and I still am today, but I've come to a bit of a better balance in terms of using the technology to,
[00:24:31] Unknown:
pursue my goals rather than avoiding it. What would you say to people who do not think privacy is something they should consider? Like why, what would you say to people that don't don't think privacy is important?
[00:24:47] Unknown:
I I would first point out the ways in which I actually think they do care about privacy, they just maybe don't realize that they do, and that if those things went away that they would probably hate it. Like, most people are okay with having curtains on their window and closing them at night, so that, you know, especially in a city where you can often see through, your neighbors windows, people are okay with that, like, there's this, an assumed, I mean, we wear clothes that is a reflection of us wanting to have some privacy with our body. And there's a lot of variation in that, but most people go around wearing clothes, and that's, you know, that's an example of privacy of the body and, you know, now with facial recognition, we have to deal with not only just people that are actually in our vicinity seeing us, we have to deal with people in a data center far away, not only seeing us in the moment, but having a record of that all the time.
And I don't think people have fully understood the implications of that, of having a record of every place you go at all times. I think part of that is because, example in this country, it's, there's a lot of, there's, not really a lot of political repression and so people aren't worried about the the state having that surveillance on them. I mean, there's not too much CCTV here, but there are some cameras, And, yeah, it's I think I was actually saying this to someone last night that the problem with, countries like Norway and a lot of other countries when they explore new technology, they they celebrate it. Right.
And part of the reason they celebrate it is because they're not necessarily worried that anyone in their environment is going to abuse that technology to harm them. Whereas if you go to other places in the world where that's not the case, that new technology can be used to, surveil and, repress people. So if you don't have the restraint in your, in your, political environment where those abuses can't happen, then then you become much more aware of how available privacy is.
[00:27:17] Unknown:
Clearly, like, this is not this is not the type of clothes that you wear on a daily basis. Most people I I imagine a lot of people who are watching this use social media. They post pictures of themselves, their family, their friends all the time. Many different sites, many different services, you know, maybe they have a a ring doorbell camera that sends video of them to Amazon servers every time they enter their house or their office. To why why do you value just not disclosing your face? Why do you keep your face private? What would you say to those people of, you know, to explain what your stance is in that regard?
[00:28:00] Unknown:
The reason I mean, I I mean, part of it is just I was I was never really a fan of taking pictures of myself in general. But the reason, especially in the last couple of years where I've tried very hard, it's kind of a paradox where I'm a privacy advocate, but I also am trying to be a public speaker, and I did not I did not anticipate many years ago that I was gonna be a public speaker. So it's definitely a tricky thing to do where you're in the public eye and trying to share ideas, but there's this expectation that you also share your identity, and in a in a physical way, not just in your ideas.
And I I think it definitely conflicts, I think, with, my generation in particular, but people in general is that a lot of people, they not only like doing that, but they have they have this desire to be famous. Like, they would they would like to wake up one day and see their name or their face in a paper and being celebrated. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, to to want acceptance and praise for, who you are. But, at some level, that can also be really detrimental because if you ask a lot of famous people, you know, if if they could go back and change something what would they do? A lot of them say they would try to have more privacy.
That's the thing that they actually want the most because oftentimes their home address is known by everyone. If they go to a restaurant, they get photographed. If they get into a relationship, everybody knows within a couple minutes. And they just constantly feel on edge because on one hand you get you have the benefit of this praise and this, admiration, but on the reverse, it can also turn into revulsion and anger, and judgment, and they definitely don't want that. And it often limits who they can become. And so for me personally, I like to be able to walk down the street anywhere and not be recognized.
Unfortunately, I do get recognized for my voice, but I solve that by just not talking. I like to be able to just walk down the street and nobody knows me, and the only way that people will know me is if they already know me, or if I want them to get to know me. Otherwise, like, it it it gives me that choice, and I also don't given that I am a public speaker, I also don't want to be in a position where I don't I don't know if I will ever be famous famous, but I never wanna be in a position where I feel like I have to pigeonhole myself because I'm worried about, people getting angry at me and coming after me for the opinions that I have. Like, I wanna be able to speak as freely as possible.
And that's also why I want to use Bitcoin because I want to also be able to spend my money as freely as possible and not be limited by the policies that any given bank has or a payment processor or what have you. So they're kind of related, but, yeah, I just I want to keep that freedom. And so I hide my face because,
[00:31:30] Unknown:
I feel like that actually gives me more freedom. Like, to be clear, you're not wearing that mask to protect from disease.
[00:31:37] Unknown:
No. I mean, I I'm Yeah. I'm not worried about disease because I'm a quite I'm quite a healthy person. I did not get COVID once this entire pandemic. So no, I'm not worried about disease. So, I mean, it is very convenient though. I don't know how I I am tempted to actually keep wearing masks, just because it's anti sort of anti facial recognition, but, unfortunately, I think a lot of the systems have gotten smarter where they're now If you're wearing a mask, they're looking at, like your eyebrows or your forehead. The nose is shaking. Yeah. So the mask isn't, which is why I have 2.
[00:32:17] Unknown:
I mean that was an interesting that was an interesting situation with the COVID response just in general because in a lot of places wearing masks was either illegal or like borderline criminalized. And I know in New York like there's a law in the books that like 2 people can't be together,
[00:32:34] Unknown:
wearing a mask at the same time. Yeah, very, very interesting flip where suddenly it became a crime to not, not, not cover your face. But personally,
[00:32:44] Unknown:
you know, I've, as, as a public privacy advocate myself I've obviously wrestled with the same, trade offs that that you were just discussing. I've often been called a hypocrite, for for being a public privacy advocate, as if you can't be both public and pro privacy at the same time. Personally, I do regret, some days I wake up in the morning and I regret that I exposed my face, that my face is known. One of the things is you can't ever go back,
[00:33:19] Unknown:
once that happens. Yeah. Actually, before I came here I was talking to someone about what I did and when I mentioned that I don't have any pictures of me online, then they asked, oh, how did you get them all taken down? Right. And my response was I never put them up in the first place.
[00:33:36] Unknown:
What would you say to the people that say public figures that advocate for privacy are hypocrites?
[00:33:45] Unknown:
I I don't I don't think it's hypocritical. I mean, it may it depends. I think it's a scale, but I I don't think it's hypocritical because, for me, privacy is about consent. And, I mean, even though you may regret that you also have a public face as well. I mean, you did choose. You weren't forced to do that, even if maybe you regret your decision. And I think continuing to do it is also a choice. And so for me, privacy is about consent and, I think a lot of people have the idea that, I'm not exactly representing the contrary, but a lot of people have the idea that, privacy is about, you know, completely obscuring yourself and hiding.
And people can do that. I think it's a scale though, based on your choices and your threat model and the way you want to live your life. And I think you should always have the option to go at different points of the scale, but I don't think it's invalid for someone to have a public face and post pictures, but also care about privacy. I don't think that invalidates it because you can have a public face and still be private about where you live and what you're doing and where you're spending your money. There's a lot of people who have all of those things and have very little privacy.
So I think, as long as you're working towards it in other areas of your life, if if the way you're living makes you happy and you feel like you have a lot of freedom and you can do what you wanna do, then maybe it's okay to sacrifice privacy in some areas, and that's not a detriment to your life. I don't know if sharing, my face publicly also would be a detriment to my life, but because I don't I'm not sure of the consequences. I'm just being cautious about that. But no, I don't think it's I don't think it's hypocrisy.
[00:35:41] Unknown:
So, I mean, one of the things in the privacy circles that a lot of people talk about is this this almost a meme now, I don't care about privacy because I have nothing to hide. But what I've noticed more myself, through my education at first in talking to people is that in today's age what I see more is people are using lots of social media, you know, they have they have their assistant devices which are basically like wire taps that are connected in their home, they send their DNA places and they say to me, Matt, I'm already screwed, there's there's there's nothing I can do to improve my situation.
What would you say to those people?
[00:36:25] Unknown:
I would recommend them a book called Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell because he actually goes through a lot of he actually, like, makes guides about how to, remove yourself from the Internet, even if you use things like Amazon and stuff. He shows you the opt out policies, the data deletion policies, which it may not be perfect, but you definitely can do it to a degree. So I wouldn't say that, there's very few things where there's a point of no return where you can't reverse them or improve them. So I definitely I don't think that that's a good argument, because, if it was, if it was that hard to do, we wouldn't see so much censorship on the Internet.
We see stuff getting taken down all the time, things getting lost. So, there definitely are ways to,
[00:37:22] Unknown:
delete yourself from the Internet. You can always improve your situation. Yeah. It's not a lost cause. Yeah.
[00:37:29] Unknown:
And even if you can't, you can also, you know, change your life, move to a different location, and start fresh. And if you learn about the ways that, you cannot do those things again, that's an improvement even if, you know, the the version of you that lived in the previous place that you lived is fully doxed. You can go somewhere else and still get a sense of safety and privacy, even if your former life doesn't have that.
[00:37:58] Unknown:
So one of the things that, always intrigued me about you is you're very publicly proud about not carrying a cell phone. Why don't you carry a cell phone? Everybody carries a cell phone.
[00:38:10] Unknown:
Yeah. So again, this is kind of, sort of related to being a technophobe. I was one of those weird kids that, it was when it was becoming popular for, you know, teenagers to have cell phones. I was not interested in having a cell phone at all. My parents actually kind of forced it on me, because they needed a way to communicate with me. So I have I have used phones, I've used dumb phones, I actually still, I've I've had so few phones in my life that I still have in my possession all of the phones that I've ever used. So I have used them, but I've used them in very limited degrees.
Part of that is actually not to do with privacy. It's to do with kind of the the patterns of behavior that you get into when you have a smartphone and you're relying on it for everything all the time. For example, I've never had the experience of laying in bed and reading something on my phone or watching something. I've I've just never used a phone in bed, at all. It's not the first thing that I look at when I wake up. I when I go out to eat places or go shopping or meet with people, I am not carrying a phone. I try to prearrange plans, and I, I've become very good at navigating without, using any kind of Internet connected device to help me. I use maps. I use my memory.
[00:39:44] Unknown:
I will You use the actual paper maps?
[00:39:47] Unknown:
I haven't used paper max paper maps, very much. Part of that is because if you're a person who's walking around carrying a paper map, you get quickly targeted by people who want to help you, because they think that you're a lost tourist. So I would actually recommend, to people who, if they want to stop using phones, but they need something to help with navigation, I actually recommend getting, like, a car, like an auto GPS device because a lot of them look like really chunky smartphones, but it has a limited function. It tells you where you are and where you want to it helps you get to where you want to go. So you can go around carrying a device that will help you navigate, and it looks like a smartphone, so you won't look like a lost tourist. You'll look like everyone else who is using Google Maps to, walk around.
So And it doesn't have an Internet connection. It's not tracking you. I mean it might, but, like, it's very limited. It's, like, only telling
[00:40:48] Unknown:
you about location. Well, I know, like, the dedicated garments don't Yeah. Like, the maps are preloaded.
[00:40:55] Unknown:
Yeah. You can preload. Yeah. You can preload the maps and yeah. So, to, yeah, get back to the main thread. Part of the reason I don't use smartphones is just because I don't want to I I don't wanna constantly be getting notifications. I don't want because I've want a part I've tried to actually learn what is the experience of, like, a person who does rely on their phone and then goes without it. And it's usually, like, digital detox videos. And a lot of people say that they're even scared to walk out of their own house without a smartphone because they think that they'll get lost on the way. And if they don't have their smartphone, then they'll they'll not be able to find their way home. And I find that, I find that amazing because I've never I've never had that fear. Like, I part of it is just I prepare so much, but also I just have a good understanding of my surroundings. So if I do get lost, I know, okay, I can walk to a train station. Train stations have, like, area maps. I can use the area maps to get back to where I'm familiar with the territory.
And so, like, navigation is one example where I I I don't want to rely on a smartphone to be telling me, that information where without it, I am like I'm like a,
[00:42:18] Unknown:
it may, it basically makes me super vulnerable. You would say it's like a com, it's a combination of, privacy reasons and not wanting to be dependent on it, you don't wanna have this dependence on this
[00:42:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's it's not just, yeah, it's not just technology either, I'm, like, in my daily life, I try to, with my with my diet, I I don't I avoid alcohol and drugs and basically my only, I would say, addiction is probably sugar dependency because I can definitely feel when I haven't had sugar.
[00:42:54] Unknown:
What about caffeine?
[00:42:55] Unknown:
I do not drink coffee. No. I don't drink coffee. I drink alcohol occasionally, but, I used that was only since, recently. Before that, I never had it. And, that's kind of in the same category if I'm trying to avoid having dependencies where, I need to have something or it affects my mood or my energy level. And so that's all kind of in the same territory. The the privacy reasons for not having a smartphone is a very long list, because, smartphones have so many things in them that you do not control. The hardware is unless you have, like, an open source phone, where you can actually take it apart and see how it functions. There is so much happening with smartphones, that is detrimental to your privacy. Like, every time you unlock your phone, it's notifying if you have an Android phone. It's like notifying Google about your, your location, I think.
And, it was once said that smartphones are basically tracking devices that make phone calls. Right. So I I've there are ways that you can use a smartphone in a privacy preserving way to a degree, But it's it's, it's I think it's much harder than, doing that with a laptop. So I avoid smartphones as much as possible.
[00:44:32] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, it seems to me that you grew up with a lot of these values. I mean, that you did you weren't posting pictures on social media. You weren't using a smartphone at a young age. When we see kids these days, well I sound like such an old man kids these days. You see a lot of kids come in, they're using social media, they're using assistance, you know, voice assistance, they're using iPads. You go you go to dinner, you see a kid with an iPad at at 2 years old, 3 years old. It seems to me that it's a it's a troubling trend. Do you are are you concerned by that? Do do you ever feel that it's maybe a lost cause these the the work you do?
And how do you how do you battle with that? Like how do you battle with the frustration of of of this new generation coming basically directly into the surveillance economy?
[00:45:26] Unknown:
Yeah. It's especially difficult with children because, I mean their parents often are at an age where they didn't have that much access to technology when they were children, and so they don't understand the effects that that much technology use at a young age will affect their children. I'm not and I'm definitely not opposed to kids using smartphones or tablets if the purpose of it is, for example, education. Like, there are some great educational apps that, are that can, you know, help them learn things in a very interactive and fun way. But I think that a lot of kids are not using, these devices for education.
Their parents give them these devices because it's a good distraction. It's a digital babysitter. It's a way for them to often not engage with their children. And the scary part is a lot of the time they don't even have an awareness of who else their children are engaging with when they're using, social media, even these apps. I've seen some of the the the ads that play for mobile games. They are incredibly disturbing. I recommend, like, if you're if you're a person who's never done mobile gaming, I recommend looking up the kinds of ads that play for mobile games. They are they are scary.
And I, you know, if I've seen them just by looking up, like, examples, then I can imagine that kids who are playing these games are seeing them. Because, like, a lot of these games, you you click a button to say, yeah, I'm 18 years old. But of course, there's no proof. Right. Every kid's gonna click that button. Yeah. And I don't know if there should be proof. I don't think it should be the responsibility of the game developer to verify a child's age. I think parents should be responsible and, like, have a good communication with their child, about what kinds of content they're engaging with. And when a kid gets to a certain age, of course, then it becomes more their choice, and they may might make mistakes. But when you're dealing with a child who does not understand the consequences of their actions, it really is the parent's responsibility, and children do not understand the consequences of constantly staring at a screen for hours on end every day.
And it's one thing for an adult to do that, and we kind of have an awareness of how that can affect your mental health as an adult. But when you have a developing child, brain, that probably even had like, the effects are probably of an even greater magnitude. So I'm definitely going to be the type of parent that, like, I I I don't wanna be the type of parent that says, no, you absolutely can't use this, and I just never provide it to them. I would explain to them, you know, the dangers of, the technology that they want to use. If they want to use it, maybe they won't. Maybe maybe I'll pass on some privacy genes or something.
But, I definitely would explain to them, like, here here's the reason. I like, for any kind of rules that I would have for my kids, I would explain why I have the rules that I do, and, you know, explain that it's about safety and, you know, you'll to at some to some degree, you have to say you'll understand someday because you can't explain everything to them. But, yeah, I'm definitely worried about the the current trend of, kids using this technology. And you you can definitely tell that you can definitely tell that the people who make it are aware of this, because people are constantly mentioning, like, the the children of, like, the social media CEOs Right. Aren't letting that they're not allowed to use this stuff.
And that definitely, like, tells you that they're aware that it can have negative effects.
[00:49:29] Unknown:
What would you say what would you say to parents that say, you know, we're living in an increasing digital world. They don't want to, you know, put their kids at a disadvantage by keeping them away from technology.
[00:49:42] Unknown:
Yeah. That's the other side is, I mean, a lot of the time it's not even coming from the parents anymore, it's coming from the schools. A lot of the schools are requiring, like they're they're using Google systems to do, like, email and document sharing. Right. And so a lot of the pressure is also coming from the schools, and the parents are being forced into it because we don't a lot of places don't have school choice, which, you know, that's an aspect of it. And, there's also countries where you're not even allowed to homeschool or do any kind of alternative schooling, which is something that I also care about. I I definitely think it's important to have a choice in not only where your child gets educated, but the kind of education that they are exposed to because I think, I've done a lot of research about education systems and how effective they are, and especially in the US where it's very age restricted, and kind of assumes that because you're this age, you should be learning these things and going at this pace. It really doesn't make sense. I think education should be much more individualized, to the child and that children should be given more freedom to decide actually what they're interested in and pursue that.
But, yeah, back to privacy. Yeah. Children are really disadvantaged privacy wise because of the education system. Like, all of their school work, all of their learning is often happening on systems that are surveilled and part of the reason is because schools want to surveil children and make sure they're doing their homework, because, the parent like, the parents or the community hasn't instilled in these kids. Oftentimes, the kind of, they, like, have to kind of coerce them to get the work done. They're not relying on the kill the the children having values of, you know, self learning type values, which means that they try to solve that by implementing surveillance systems. And I think that, using surveillance to solve social social issues is not, a good move.
[00:52:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I a a lot of times I'm very grateful that, you know, we were both born in a time where, surveillance, at least digital surveillance wasn't so all encompassing. You know, now kids are just born basically into surveillance. They've never known anything else. Especially with the pandemic and everything being on Zoom. Oh, that was just, like, super acceleration there. And now they're talking about,
[00:52:30] Unknown:
if this, you know, if this happens again, if they keep doing this, then they're they're gonna try and implement, like, software with Zoom or any of these other platforms where they actually check, like, they read the the child's, like, expression, their their face, and to see if they're, like, paying attention. So they're, yeah, I, duh, I I don't like that road at all. The pandemic definitely accelerated a bunch of things with surveillance and education that I don't like. It's so interesting because those types of stories are
[00:53:05] Unknown:
it's like it's 2 fold. It's both it makes you frustrated, when you work in the privacy space but it also At least to me it it reaffirms why it's so important to to keep pushing forward and to keep trying to, at least, at the very least improve education on that front. So we have, this free Assange cape behind us in frame. Why is this case important to you?
[00:53:29] Unknown:
I mean, in short, the case is important to me because, I mean, it it's had such an impact on my life that, I don't think I don't think I would be sitting here or on stage at Oslo Freedom Forum, in 2 days. I don't think I would be at either of those places without, his work because, I definitely did not grow up in an environment where, you know, being interested in that kind of stuff was encouraged or even acknowledged really. I was very self motivated to learn more about it and support it. And I think, I mean, this is also a very critical time because, not very long ago, it became the date where the home secretary in the UK can, announce whether she approves or rejects the extradition request from the US.
And, if she does approve it, that's not the end of the game because they can still appeal in the court system in the UK, and then they can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which the UK is still beholden to even though they've left the European Union. So it's a very critical time right now because there's been a lot of protests about, that decision because I think it still is important. And but the whole thing is unfortunate in general because he shouldn't actually even be in Belmarsh prison right now because he technically won the case. And most people when, you know, they win a case and then it's being appealed by either side, they are mandated to, you know, stay within the state, but they're not in prison.
And the fact that he's in a maximum security prison when he isn't even accused of a violent crime is insane. Like, he's sharing cells with people who have been accused or convicted of terrorism. It's it's it it makes no sense from, a criminal justice point of view. It also especially doesn't make sense because the work that he did exposed crime by very powerful states and people around the world. And so if anyone should be in prison, it's the people that he exposed, not him.
[00:55:57] Unknown:
What would you what would you say to people who say that him his work, Assange's work with WikiLeaks and leaking documents, should be considered a criminal act?
[00:56:14] Unknown:
I would say that they I mean, for 1, the work that he did wasn't actually so different from the work that national security journalists and a ton of other journalists do already. The only difference is that most of them don't usually publish original source documents. They do sometimes, but not at this volume. And most people see that as somehow a worse form of journalism, but I've always appreciated journalists who publish their sources because it gives the reader the opportunity to verify the information for themselves and not have to trust the person who has, you know, put it through their own personal filter.
Like, I I value the opinion much more of people who say this is my interpretation of this information, But if you don't agree with that, you can look at the source documents yourself, and maybe I got it wrong. Maybe it says something else. Maybe the the impact of it is different. I would also say that the, one of the allegations that was made is that the release of those documents caused harm. And both in the trial for Chelsea or the court martial for Chelsea Manning, that happened many years ago. And even now, this case in the UK, there was opportunities for the US government to make the case, give evidence that harm was caused as a result of these disclosures, they could not cite a single person. I think in the UK trial, they gave an example of someone having to move.
They had to, like, move out of the country or something. That was their reasoning. Yeah. But no no physical harm. No one died. They did not provide a single example of anyone getting harm. On the other side, what the documents reveal is massive harm, massive carnage, that we would not even know about without these documents because the US government and other states, were actively hiding this information. We would not have any idea of the civilian casualties from all of the wars that are being waged. We wouldn't have an idea of the corruption involved. And I think the idea that we would try to point our finger at someone like him and say you've caused harm but we have no evidence of this and ignore the the evidence of the harm that has actually happened, is, I think it's it's simply dishonest because the person is kind of presenting this argument usually, implying that they care about people being harmed. And my response is if you care about people being harmed, you would actually look at the data.
You would actually look at the source material and see what it tells you, not try to basically put him outside the political tent of journalism, which means that he can be put in prison for exposing crime, having harmed no one.
[00:59:31] Unknown:
Janine, I wanna thank you again for joining us. If you could say one thing to someone who may not really, understand the importance of privacy and freedom in their lives, what would it be?
[00:59:44] Unknown:
Well, I think going on for the last question, part of the reason that, I wanted to have this here today, especially if they also have freedom for them because I'm gonna be wearing it as a cape, is because the woman, who came up with the term cypherpunk, Jude Millen, also known as Saint Jude, she wrote for the original Wired magazine before it was called Wired magazine. In 1993, she said, another caped nerd for peace, justice, and privacy, and I've always liked that phrase. And so part of the reason I, I'm going to wear this as a cape is because I'm kind of playing on that slogan. And there's this phrase that we hear all the time, not all heroes wear capes.
And so I would say, also not all nerds wear capes. And these days, a lot of a lot of heroes instead of wearing capes, they're wearing prison jumpsuits. And if part of the foundation of justice, is that you speak up for those who can't speak for themselves, then, I want to wear this as a message that I will be or I will always try to be one of those people.
[01:01:00] Unknown:
Awesome. Thanks, Janine. Really appreciate it.
Introducing Janine
What does freedom mean to Janine?
Conveying the importance of freedom
The purpose of KYC laws
A world without cash and misconceptions about privacy
Being proactive with your privacy
Janine's decision to become an independent journalist
Why privacy is important
Why does Janine hide her face?
Are public figures that advocate for privacy hypocrites?
Is it ever too late to improve your privacy?
Why Janine doesn't carry a cell phone
Children being born into a surveillance economy
The Free Assange movement
