The Revolution Will Not Be Centralized

!

bitcoin

magic internet money

!

bitcoin

1AwsMQhSoWxziP3XEnRtNurWuktBDK4GkCLyY7aKc290...

1BzZ2shEZmJUZyPScNTkfVFnSovkJsXeYZ

15Y1QuDTdVmn8HCjMn14VX7CvsLUC3t6oE

1FdJiTCUwWedQvt7TaWouAD3mMPmNLMu4s

1JFda26Z3s5eFHF7QWiVy5FFgoA8Lq8qPR

14XngApwvbbR2zige17mmwRG2GrpPAeDY1

1winnert72Hkk9tqg4xKQJZTEH9vLsAQfS

...Address: 1winnert72Hkk9tqg4xKQJZTEH9vLsAQfSPrivkey: <keep this safe!>

1

2

3

4 profit!

decentralized

protocol

trustless

open

neutral

DECENTRALIZE

ALL THE THINGS!

like what?• Email (GMail -> Bitmessage)

• Storage (Dropbox -> Storj)

• Money (USD, EUR -> Bitcoin)

• Social media (Twitter -> Twister)

• Even companies themselves (status quo -> DAOs, DACs)

why bother?• Freedom (of choice; from censorship)

• Privacy (deciding what to share, with whom)

• Prosperity (fewer middlemen, fewer fees)

• Resiliency (fewer single points of failure)

• Competition (leading to better choices for users)

big challenges• Coordination

• Discovery

• Adoption

• Infrastructure

• Funding

but many are now rising to those challenges

MUSCULAR

TEMPORA

BOUNDLESS INFORMANT

Mastering the

Internet

Global Telecoms

Exploitation

MYSTIC

SURVEIL

ALL THE CITIZENS!

Q: what do we do about it?

A1: absolutely nothing!

Privacy isn't about having something to hide. It's about control.

Either you have it, or someone else does.

"The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control."

!

~ Bruce Schneier

!

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the

protection of the law against such interference or attacks." !

~Article 12, UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

!

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

!

~Benjamin Franklin

A2: protest!

maybe

maybe not.

"Don't blame the NSA for being the first to buy a hammer off a store shelf."

~ Jeff Garzik

A3: decentralize.

it shouldn't be this easy :(

A4: encrypt.

1999

2005

... and today?

1. give up 2. protest 3. decentralize 4. encrypt

problem: no incentive

cause: advertising

"It’s time to start paying for privacy, to support services we love, and to abandon those that are free, but sell us—the users

and our attention—as the product."

we're addicted to free services

free services survive on advertising

free services survive on surveillance

free is a lie.

government surveillance

corporate surveillanceenables

if only there were another way...

Alice

Charlie

Dave

50%

25%

25%5%95%

SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY

Alice

Charlie

Dave

50%

25%

25%0%100%

`

oops.

crowdfunding

equity crowdfunding

crypto-equity crowdfunding

CounterpartyMastercoin

Swarm

MaidSafe

(which builds on)

Mastercoin protocol

uses to launch

and

The Four Freedoms1. The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.

2. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

4. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

OH MY GOD...

WHAT IF STALLMAN WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG

free software!+ bitcoin!+ decentralized crowdfunding!-----------------------------! new ways to directly(!) fund FOSS

putting it all together

http://media.coindesk.com/2014/08/storj.png

metered resource consumption and QoS

bitcoin micropayment channels

zero trust

the network is the computer :)

problems and threats

Legal

Silk Road

OpenBazaar

systemic weaknesses

bitcoin itself is decentralizedbut bitcoin exchanges aren't

centralized services

• Web wallets

• Exchanges

• OTC Bureaus

• Coinbase, Circle, ...

Regulatory

BitLicense

Privacy (Transaction Analysis)

CoinJoin / ZeroCash

conclusions

"decentralizing all the things" probably won't be a mainstream

phenomenon anytime soon

but that's okay.

all we need is enough

this revolution is peaceful.

things you can do• Patronize "small businesses" on the web like pinboard

• Or start one :)

• Run a full bitcoin node

• Run a Tor exit node

• Read up, dive in: http://chris.beams.io/posts/bitcoin/

"In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model.

You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.

That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called."

~ Buckminster Fuller ~

thanks!

questions?chris.beams.io/talks/revolution

@cbeams

http://coinmap.org