Bitcoin: Privacy and Censorship Resistance Beyond the Web
Thursday, February 16th 2017, 19:00
Hotel Cristal, Schwanthalerstraße 36, 80336 Munich
Hauptbahnhof, exit South "Bayerstraße". 5 Minute walk via Goethestraße to Schwanthalerstraße junction.
We're delighted to have members from the Bitcoin Core development team dropping by this time.
"Blue Matt" Corallo, advisor for Blockstream and working at Chaincode Labs Inc. in New York, will however start with a rather political talk about the impact of Bitcoin on society.
19:00 Doors open, snacks + drinks, socializing
19:30 Welcome, Introduction
19:45 Matt Corallo - Bitcoin: Privacy and Censorship Resistance Beyond the Web
In much of the western world, governments have developed the ability to prevent individuals or organizations from accessing financial services, with little or no court oversight or ability of those being marginalized to challenge the rulings. Under the guise of “terrorism” and "protecting reputations", individuals and organizations, from porn stars, to advocates for those illegally detained in Guantanamo Bay have found themselves unable to hold bank accounts, unable to accept payments online, or even had their funds seized without warning by both private and government actions. In the developing world, the situation can be just as, if not more, extreme.
In the mean time, Bitcoin has been slowly shedding its anarchistic and anti-establishment origins and finding places where it can provide legitimate value within the current financial world. In this talk, we'll cover both how Bitcoin is in a unique position to provide activists and marginalized groups access to financial systems to ensure they can continue their work, while still meeting requirements placed on the financial system for reasonable law enforcement purposes. We'll touch on a few cryptographic primitives which, when combined with Bitcoin, can create incredibly practical and powerful tools to comply with regulation without giving up privacy, and of course cover a few common misconceptions about Bitcoin.
Target audience: Newcomers, activists, and everyone
20:45 Break
21:00 Technical Part
Matt will also shortly introduce some of the technical stuff he's currently working on, with the opportunity to discuss current matters.
Target audience for this part: Technical, advanced/expert level
22:00 End of official part
https://www.meetup.com/Bitcoin-Munich/events/235381272/
On a side note, a twist of fate somewhat pushed us to switch from our usual location on rather short notice, so that we'll be at Hotel Cristal.
Our event has thus officially become an unofficial track of the SECON 2017, a 3-day security conference from Thursday to Saturday organized by the Pirate Party, with speakers like Birgitta Jónsdóttir and others.
http://pirate-secon.org/
You can attend our particular talk for free of course, like usual, but everyone shall feel encouraged to consider getting tickets for the whole conference. :)
It's practically a counter-event to the big political theater of the Munich Security Conference that takes place at the same time. (Which we suspect also contributed to the forces at play that made us having to change location.)