Why

Imagine that you're a supervillain and you want to fund your dastardly plans. You know what might come in handy? Decentralized, censorship-resistant, anonymous payments technology.

As members of the nascent blockchain industry, we plan to keep building that technology anyway, but we want to minimize the opportunities for supervillains. (Or even regular villains.)

The organizers of Blockchain Against Evil believe that an open, permissionless financial system will have tremendous benefits for civil society. At the same time, it will enable bad actors to wreak havoc in new ways. Even if the harm doesn't outweigh the good, limiting harm is still a worthwhile goal.

What

Blockchain Against Evil is an opportunity to come together and brainstorm: What might bad actors come up with? How can the rest of us can design around their ill intentions without limiting everyone's freedom?

The planned format is for moderators to lead informal group discussions, divided by specific sub-topics. Please see the "When" section for session details.

The conversations at Blockchain Against Evil will be held under the Chatham House Rule.

Who

• Jeffrey Ladish from Reserve
• David Noble from Gunclear
• Sonya Mann from the Zcash Foundation

The organizers' respective employers are sponsoring the event.

All ticket proceeds will be donated to Open Privacy, a Canadian nonprofit. "Open Privacy's mandate is to build tools for people and for communities, tools that cannot be used against them, tools that give them control."

When

Wednesday, December 5th

11am – 11:30am
registration, coffee

11:30am – 12pm
event introduction

12pm – 1pm

• Derek Hsue and Wei-Ning Huang on the privacy issues posed by open blockchain data
• Izaak Meckler on how the cryptocurrency world can replicate societal inequities

1pm – 2pm
break for lunch

2pm – 3pm

• Jill Carlson, Alejandro Machado, and David Noble on states using cryptocurrencies (including fake ones)
• Zera Alexander and Jeffrey Ladish on ransomware, cryptojacking, and future exploitations not possible without blockchain(s)

3pm – 4pm

• Daniel Klein on balancing compassion for victims of scammers with systemic security needs (think immutability)
• John Backus on how black-market entities tend to approach evading regulation and censorship

4pm – 5pm
summary discussion, sharing takeaways from each session

5pm – 6pm
happy hour

Where

The event is located at 1436 Polk Street in San Francisco, between the Nob Hill and Tenderloin neighborhoods, within a 20-minute walk of either the Powell or Civic Center BART stations.

We will provide snacks and refreshments, including beer and wine during the happy hour, but attendees are expected to either bring their own lunch or visit one of the many delicious local restaurants.

Questions?

Email sonya@z.cash.foundation.