1766: "Autistici/Inventati - The Network Behind the Network"

0:00In 2001, a group of activists and computer people in Italy decided that they did not trust the usual internet companies with their communications, so they built their own system. They called it out to East Hitchee even Tadi, and they ran their own servers, email websites and mailing lists. Their goal was privacy. Collect as little information about the user as possible and make it difficult for governments, corporations or anyone else to see who was talking to whom. They called it digital self defense. It sounds pretty reasonable, depending on who's using it. In 2005, Italian authorities gained access to one of the servers during an investigation involving anarchists. The collective responded by making the network even harder to monitor, and over the years added encrypted email and chat, private web browsing, video conferencing and other communication tools. Then came the bigger problem.

1:02By 2026, people using those services included more than activists, journalists and political organizers. According to US authorities, they also included violent radical far left groups and the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a designated terrorist organization. Authorities say these groups didn't simply sneak into the network. A TSTG even Tadi screened people and organizations that wanted to use its services and looked for those that shared its politics. If that's true, this wasn't a public email service that happened to attract some very terrible users. The allegation is that the collective knew who it was dealing with, and it let them in. Investigators can determine exactly what happened and who's responsible, but the basic issue isn't complicated. A TSTG even had a built tools that made people harder to track. That's useful if your journalist protecting a source or dissident hiding from an oppressive

2:05government. It's also useful if you're planning violence and don't want the police listening. The technology it does not know the difference. The people handing out access does. And if you know who's coming through the door, you can't pretend the door has nothing to do with you. These are interesting things with J.C.