Last November’s Tête-à-Tech event dove deep into a world of global tech policy, cutting-edge surveillance and cyber threats, and the essential fight for human rights online. Our guest, Ciprian Iancu (formerly of New America’s Open Internet Tools Project), offered his perspective informed by his nine years working at the US State Department on the Internet Freedom Program, a unique initiative that used technology development—specifically open-source tools—to advance and protect human rights all over the world.
The Unlikely Origin of a Career Trajectory
Ciprian’s journey into this high-stakes arena began in a truly unexpected way. He recounts a “best worst idea” he ever had: participating in a citizen journalism project in China in the late aughts.
Our job was to collect flash drives and to transmit information. We were documenting protests… I remember getting the flash drive… and I remember that hours later, looking at a major western news website and seeing our photos on the front page. And I thought, “Holy sh*t, what did we do? This is how the world changes.”
This eye-opening experience inspired him to eventually pursue work at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) at the State Department, where he oversaw a grant portfolio dedicated to protecting human rights online, focusing on privacy, freedom of expression, and the protection of vulnerable populations.
The Power of Immediate Impact
What made this program, funded through the US foreign assistance budget, truly unique was the clear, measurable impact of its work. While many government-funded initiatives deal in abstract goals, the Internet Freedom Program focused on tangible technology, like VPNs and privacy-enhancing tools.
It was very difficult to argue with those impacts… When you put a VPN in the hands of an internet user in a restricted environment, they get access that they didn’t have, and that impact is immediate.
Ciprian cites the massive scale of the program’s reach: “Millions and millions and millions of people using the VPNs that we produced” in places like China, Russia, and Iran. This focus on open-source, circumvention technology was seen by a rare bipartisan coalition in Congress as a powerful tool to promote American values abroad—an appealing narrative that fueled the program’s existence since 2008.
The Crypto Wars: Fighting Domestic Battles for Global Freedom
In contrast with the State Department’s work in these areas, the Department of Justice and the FBI were engaged in what is historically known as the “Crypto Wars,” arguing that strong encryption was an obstacle to law enforcement. Their position? If you have nothing to hide, you should have nothing to fear from pervasive and invasive government surveillance.
Their position is really that this technology is not necessary… because we have a system that is fair and governed by the rule of law… that you shouldn’t have to worry about the government being able to surveil you constantly.
Ciprian pushes back with an argument rooted in data: only a small percentage of the encrypted communication traffic of the tools supported by the program was associated with criminal activity. The overwhelming majority of users of these tools are citizens simply trying to access information freely, and exercise their rights as citizens online.
The benefits far outweighing the costs means that when you’re engaging in that argument, you’re really re-litigating the question of whether or not freedom and privacy in society… is really valuable, or whether we should exchange those things for security.
The Ultimate Threat: Surveillance Capitalism
While the threats from state-sponsored surveillance and attacks—such as the massive DDoS attack by the Chinese government against GitHub in 2015—are dramatic, Ciprian argues that the biggest, most effective, and most challenging threat is already here: surveillance capitalism.
The cooperation of Big Tech that is surveilling all of us is far more effective than anything oppressive governments build.
He warns that through ubiquitous data collection, we have already signed away the rights to our own data, allowing massive tech companies to monetize our habits and make that information available to governments via mechanisms like a simple subpoena.
As the saying goes, if the product is free, then you are the product.
A Reason for Hope
Despite the changes in the funding landscape and the pervasive nature of digital threats, Ciprian remains optimistic. He points to the enduring power of the open-source civic tech movement and the spirit of innovation that is constantly working to restore digital rights.
The spirit of DIY, the push to learn and decentralize and… claiming your own relationship with your own technology… there is a thriving, thriving community of practice around that.
He concludes by highlighting the triumph of strong, end-to-end encryption, which is now ubiquitous thanks to the open-source protocols that the US Government helped fund—a crucial victory that makes secure communication the baseline for billions of people.
It sucks, it’s horrible, the world that we live in today, but there is… I don’t believe that hope is lost.
Optimism in Tech for Public Good
Noah Landow (Founder and CEO at Macktez) and Ciprian Iancu (formerly of New America’s Open Internet Tools Project) have a crucial conversation about the global fight for a free and open internet. Ciprian shares an optimistic perspective on the future of technology.
Surveillance Capitalism
Noah Landow (Founder and CEO at Macktez) and Ciprian Iancu (formerly of New America’s Open Internet Tools Project) sit down for a crucial conversation about the global fight for a free and open internet. Ciprian calls out the tradeoff at the heart of the modern tech economy, how “free” digital products often come at the cost of our personal data and privacy.