Welcome to the Decentralized Internet & Privacy devroom at FOSDEM 2020 (Brussels, Belgium, February 2nd). Open Source and Free Software initial promises were to empower individuals when it came to computing. Three decades later, computing practices are tightly coupled to the Internet ecosystem. PCs are less and less used while smartphones are soaring and data is collected and stored on servers on which we have very limited control as users. What happened to user's freedom and privacy in the meantime? The outlook is not so great: we have less and less control over our digital environment. Network neutrality is heavily attacked and mainstream software products are usually proprietary or run on servers we don't have control over. Modern technology has given the powerful new abilities to eavesdrop and collect data on people - with critical social and political consequences. FOSDEM is a free software event that offers free software communities a place to meet, share ideas and collaborate. It is renowned for being highly developer-oriented and brings together 8000+ participants from all over the world. It is held in the city of Brussels (Belgium). In 2020, FOSDEM will take place during the weekend of February 1st-2nd 2018. More details about the event can be found at https://fosdem.org/. On Sunday, February 2nd, the Decentralized Internet & Privacy devroom will be a place for development teams to present the state of their project and future directions, answer questions from the audience and followup in the hacking rooms nearby afterwards. Call For Participation ====================== There is a bright future ahead of us if we unite our efforts toward decentralized services and Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD as defined by EFF). This devroom welcomes all technical projects and initiatives, to share their progress and inspire others. Presentation topics could include: Technologies and initiatives focused on decentralization: - Community-driven networks - Community based around self-hosting or local hosting - Self-hosting solutions - Ethical hosting providers / alternatives to GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) - Decentralized / federated network protocols and platforms - Decentralized / distributed instant messaging, file sharing and content storage Technologies and initiatives focused on privacy: - Anonymous overlay networks - Whistleblower platforms - Privacy oriented Operating Systems - Infrastructure supporting anonymous browsing - Operational security: how to minimize the amount of information someone can collect about you online and on the streets - Basic threat modeling: what sort of paranoia do you realistically need to have? - Steps to minimize damage in the event of a breach Talks are expected to be technical as it is FOSDEM. ** Important dates - 1 Dec 2019: submission deadline for talk proposals - 15 Dec 2019: announcement of the final schedule - 2 Feb 2020: Decentralized Internet & Privacy (Sunday) Steering committee: - decentral1se (Yunohost) - Christian Pfaab (Uni Bremen) - Pili Guerra (Tor Project) - Brabo Silvius (Torservers) - realitygaps (Librehosters) Use the FOSDEM 'pentabarf' tool to submit your proposal: https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM20 If necessary, create a Pentabarf account and activate it. Please reuse your account from previous years if you have already created it. Important! Select the "Decentralized Internet & Privacy" track (on the "General" tab). Suggested talk length is 20 minutes and 10 minutes for questions. Date and location ================= Decentralized Internet & Privacy will take place all day long on 2 Feb 2020 (Sunday). The room is to be confirmed (Solbosch campus - Université Libre Brussels, Brussels, Belgium) Recording of talks ================== The FOSDEM organizers plan to have live streaming and recording fully working, both for remote/later viewing of talks, and so that people can watch streams in the hallways when rooms are full. This requires speakers to consent to being recorded and streamed. If you plan to be a speaker, please understand that by doing so you implicitly give consent for your talk to be recorded and streamed. The recordings will be published under the same license as all FOSDEM content (CC-BY).