Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who revealed the extent of internet and telecommunications surveillance by the USA’s National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ to the world, made a surprise appearance at the Hope X conference in New York over the weekend.
In his address, Snowden called upon geeks of the world to develop anti-surveillance technology to prevent governments spying on their citizens, stating: “You, in this room right now, have both the means and the capabilities to help build a better future by encoding our rights into the programs and protocols on which we rely on every day.”
Snowden also stated that the technology developed needed to be easy to use. “We need non-attributable communications for unattributed internet access that is easy, transparent and reliable,” he said and added that GPG, while effective, was “damn-near unusable” for the average user.