You'll Pay For That: Payment Systems, Surveillance, and Dissent

Sunday, July 24, 2022: 5:00 pm (Little Theatre): There has been a quiet revolution in payment systems and government power. Government efforts to track credit and banking transactions have exploded. Government efforts to discourage cash and to regula...

Sunday, July 24, 2022: 5:00 pm (Little Theatre): There has been a quiet revolution in payment systems and government power. Government efforts to track credit and banking transactions have exploded. Government efforts to discourage cash and to regulate cryptocurrencies have increased. Using examples from Canada, Ukraine, China, and Nigeria, this talk will examine these mechanisms of financial surveillance, discuss the latest innovations in government efforts to track even privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies, and highlight the debates within our community as to how to approach financial surveillance issues. What is our responsibility, as hackers, technologists, and civil liberties people to maintain the privacy from surveillance of people engaged in disfavored forms and topics of organizing and protest? Can we ensure that systems that permit freedom are able to transact privately? Without that freedom, it will be much harder to organize dissent to, well, anything.

Alex Marthews