Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, has sounded the alarm over several emerging threats to technological freedoms and, by extension, a number of the crypto community’s core values.

In a blog post, Buterin warned against political attacks on encrypted messaging, centralized identity systems, and insecure operating systems, and growing power of a few social media platforms and dominant countries to censor and deplatform people all around the world.

Buterin’s first concern is that political attacks on encrypted messaging are picking up steam. He believes that the right to private conversation is a fundamental one, and it was one of the tenets of the cypherpunk ethos underpinning the crypto movement. Governments worldwide have ratcheted up threats against messaging services to weaken their encryption or add backdoors at the potential risk to user privacy.

One other thing I would add, is that we should all agree that finance *isn’t enough*. There are sooooo many centralization points that are rapidly growing and threats in the world’s technology today:

* Ongoing political attacks on encrypted messaging * Centralized identity…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 25, 2024

He further warns that the rise of centralized identity systems with credit scores will turn out broadly corrosive to individual autonomy. These systems are harmful in that they put the power concentrated in the hands of very few entities who can further use them to surveil, control, and even discriminate against citizens on the basis of their digital profiles.

Another threat Buterin pointed out was that proprietary operating systems are bug-ridden and full of backdoors. The reason, he argues, is that having closed-source software means it’s less secure and more feasible to exploit for various actors, including governments. Buterin believes that what is actually required is the massive adoption of open source, auditable operating systems in order to avoid these risks.

Buterin warns of the very trend of increasing power of social media platforms to censor and deplatform at will, bending to the whim of governments. He criticizes the fact that opacity and centralization characterize social media algorithms, which allow them to be used in shaping information and public discourse.

Buterin specifically expresses the view that the web has been overcome by strong nations, which created geopolitical chokepoints that may shut down people or organizations across the world. He treats this trend as an undermining of the decentralized, worldwide aspect of the internet; taking away individual liberties by threatening freedom of expression and access to information is at stake here.

Finally, Buterin warns that if centralized AI and BCIs get into the wrong hands, they will be very dangerous. The aforementioned will conduct unprecedented surveillance, deplatforming, and economic domination. As such, Buterin asks for a development of decentralized, privacy-preserving AI and BCI solutions so that the risks could at least be mitigated.

Buterin’s warnings underline how important defending technological liberties is in the face of these emerging dangers. He feels that the crypto community needs to take a proactive stance in touting values that gave birth to Bitcoin and Ethereum: privacy, decentralization, and individual autonomy.

Featured image from FutureCIO, chart from TradingView

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