Alec Empire, one of the founders of music collective Atari Teenage Riot, gave the keynote speech at the annual event of Chaos Computer Club 2014. The artist, who uses an old Atari 1040 ST for his compositions, talks about a variety of topics ranging from the beauty found in machine code and sheet music to the connections between the fight for privacy and the promotion of authors’ rights.

Drawing upon his personal experiences with streaming services and censorship in the music industry, he speaks out against passive consumerism and for an alliance between hackers, musicians and other artists to shape the digital culture of the future.

Twenty-five years after the World Wide Web was created, the issue of surveillance has become the greatest shame upon its existence. With many concerned that governments and corporations monitor people’s every move, this programme meets hackers and scientists who are using technology to fight back, and some law enforcement officers who believe it’s leading to opportunities for risk-free crimes. With contributors including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange. 

The documentary features statements, in alphabetical order, by: Syrian human rights activist Reem al Asim, journalist Julia Angwin, Tor representative Jacob Applebaum, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, World Wide Web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, cryptographer David Chaum, ICANN chair Steve Crocker, SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson, internet security expert Jon Iadonisi, Kaspersky Lab founder Eugene Kaspersky, ICANN Senior Program Manager Rick Lamb, the Head of the European Cybercrime Centre Troels Oerting, information security specialist Thomas Olofson, cryptographers Bruce...

At the SXSW conference 2014 in Austin (Texas), Edward Snowden addressed the tech community, encouraging them to play the role of ‘firefighters’ who have the ability to craft solutions and make society safer. Answering questions submitted via twitter, he reflects on differences between data mining done by companies and governmental surveillance, the role of private contractors to the development of policies, and steps everyone can take to counter mass surveillance.

Part 1 of our Series: “Recovering the Web after Snowden”

“Surveillance is the business model of the internet.” In the beginning oAf June 2013, Edward Snowden´s disclosures on the ubiquitous spying system of the NSA make global headlines. Two weeks later, Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned security technologist and author, is giving this outstanding talk to Google engineers. They listen closely as Google is described as one of the “feudal security giants” of our time. They are not aware that Schneier was also one of the few citizens of the United States to be entrusted with the entire trove of Snowden´s documents. Glenn Greenwald had asked him to help out on technological details and secret service jargon.

Human society runs on trust. We all trust millions of people, organizations, and systems every day — and we do it so easily that we barely notice. But in any system of trust, there is an alternative, parasitic, strategy that involves abusing that trust. Making sure those defectors don’t destroy the cooperative systems they’re abusing is...