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Twenty-five years ago, scientists at CERN
created the World Wide Web.

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Since then, the Internet has transformed 
the way we communicate,

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the way we do business,
and even the way we live.

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In many ways,

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the ideas that gave birth to Google,
Facebook, Twitter, and so many others,

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have now really transformed our lives,

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and this has brought us many real benefits
such as a more connected society.

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However, there are also
some downsides to this.

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Today, the average person
has an astounding amount

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of personal information online,

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and we add to this online information
every single time we post on Facebook,

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each time we search on Google,

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and each time we send an email.

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Now, many of us probably think,

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well, one email,
there's nothing in there, right?

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But if you consider
a year's worth of emails,

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or maybe even a lifetime of email,

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collectively, this tells a lot.

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It tells where we have been,
who we have met,

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and in many ways,
even what we're thinking about.

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And the more scary part about this is
our data now lasts forever,

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so your data can and will outlive you.

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What has happened is that we've largely
lost control over our data

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and also our privacy.

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So this year, as the web turns 25,

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it's very important for us
to take a moment

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and think about the implications of this.

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We have to really think.

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We've lost privacy, yes,

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but actually what we've also lost
is the idea of privacy itself.

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If you think about it,

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most of us here today probably remember 
what life was like before the Internet,

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but today, there's a new generation

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that is being taught from a very young age
to share everything online,

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and this is a generation that is not 
going to remember when data was private.

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So we keep going down this road,
20 years from now,

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the word 'privacy' is going to have
a completely different meaning

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from what it means to you and I.

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So, it's time for us 
to take a moment and think,

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is there anything we can do about this?

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And I believe there is.

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Let's take a look at one of the most
widely used forms of communication

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in the world today: email.

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Before the invention of email,
we largely communicated using letters,

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and the process was quite simple.

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You would first start by writing
your message on a piece of paper,

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then you would place it
into a sealed envelope,

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and from there,
you would go ahead and send it

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after you put a stamp and address on it.

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Unfortunately, today,

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when we actually send an email,
we're not sending a letter.

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What you are sending, in many ways,
is actually a postcard,

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and it's a postcard in the sense
that everybody that sees it

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from the time it leaves your computer
to when it gets to the recipient

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can actually read the entire contents.

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So, the solution to this
has been known for some time,

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and there's many attempts to do it.

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The most basic solution
is to use encryption,

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and the idea is quite simple.

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First, you encrypt the connection

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between your computer
and the email server.

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Then, you also encrypt the data
as it sits on the server itself.

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But there's a problem with this,

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and that is, the email servers
also hold the encryption keys,

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so now you have a really big lock
with a key placed right next to it.

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But not only that, any government
could lawfully ask for

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and get the key to your data,

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and this is all without you
being aware of it.

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So the way we fix this problem
is actually relatively easy, in principle:

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You give everybody their own keys,

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and then you make sure the server
doesn't actually have the keys.

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This seems like common sense, right?

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So the question that comes up is,
why hasn't this been done yet?

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Well, if we really think about it,

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we see that the business model
of the Internet today

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really isn't compatible with privacy.

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Just take a look at some
of the biggest names on the web,

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and you see that advertising
plays a huge role.

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In fact, this year alone,
advertising is 137 billion dollars,

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and to optimize the ads
that are shown to us,

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companies have to know
everything about us.

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They need to know where we live,

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how old we are, what we like,
what we don't like,

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and anything else
they can get their hands on.

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And if you think about it,

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the best way to get this information
is really just to invade our privacy.

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So these companies
aren't going to give us our privacy.

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If we want to have privacy online,

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what we have to do is
we've got to go out and get it ourselves.

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For many years, when it came to email,

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the only solution
was something known as PGP,

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which was quite complicated
and only accessible to the tech-savvy.

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Here's a diagram that basically shows

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the process for encrypting
and decrypting messages.

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So needless to say,
this is not a solution for everybody,

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and this actually is part of the problem,

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because if you think about communication,

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by definition, it involves
having someone to communicate with.

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So while PGP does a great job
of what it's designed to do,

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for the people out there
who can't understand how to use it,

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the option to communicate privately
simply does not exist.

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And this is a problem
that we need to solve.

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So if we want to have privacy online,

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the only way we can succeed
is if we get the whole world on board,

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and this is only possible
if we bring down the barrier to entry.

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I think this is actually the key challenge
that lies in the tech community.

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What we really have to do
is work and make privacy more accessible.

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So last summer, when
the Edward Snowden story came out,

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several colleagues and I decided to see
if we could make this happen.

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At that time, we were working at the
European Organization for Nuclear Research

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at the world's largest particle collider,
which collides protons, by the way.

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We were all scientists,
so we used our scientific creativity

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and came up with a very
creative name for our project:

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ProtonMail.
(Laughter)

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Many startups these days
actually begin in people's garages

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or people's basements.

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We were a bit different.

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We started out at the CERN cafeteria,

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which actually is great, because look,

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you have all the food
and water you could ever want.

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But even better than this
is that every day

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between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m.,
free of charge,

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the CERN cafeteria comes with
several thousand scientists and engineers,

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and these guys basically know
the answers to everything.

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So it was in this environment
that we began working.

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What we actually want to do
is we want to take your email

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and turn it into something
that looks more like this,

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but more importantly,
we want to do it in a way

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that you can't even tell
that it's happened.

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So to do this, we actually need
a combination of technology

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and also design.

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So how do we go about
doing something like this?

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Well, it's probably a good idea
not to put the keys on the server.

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So what we do is we generate
encryption keys on your computer,

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and we don't generate a single key,
but actually a pair of keys,

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so there's an RSA private key
and an RSA public key,

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and these keys
are mathematically connected.

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So let's have a look
and see how this works

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when multiple people communicate.

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So here we have Bob and Alice,
who want to communicate privately.

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So the key challenge
is to take Bob's message

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and to get it to Alice in such a way
that the server cannot read that message.

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So what we have to do
is we have to encrypt it

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before it even leaves Bob's computer,

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and one of the tricks is, we encrypt it
using the public key from Alice.

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Now this encrypted data is sent
through the server to Alice,

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and because the message was encrypted
using Alice's public key,

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the only key that can now decrypt it
is a private key that belongs to Alice,

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and it turns out Alice is the only person
that actually has this key.

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So we've now accomplished the objective,

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which is to get the message
from Bob to Alice

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without the server being able
to read what's going on.

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Actually, what I've shown here
is a highly simplified picture.

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The reality is much more complex

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and it requires a lot of software
that looks a bit like this.

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And that's actually
the key design challenge:

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How do we take all this complexity,
all this software,

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and implement it in a way
that the user cannot see it.

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I think with ProtonMail,
we have gotten pretty close to doing this.

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So let's see how it works in practice.

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Here, we've got Bob and Alice again,

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who also want to communicate securely.

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They simply create accounts on ProtonMail,

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which is quite simple
and takes a few moments,

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and all the key encryption and generation

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is happening automatically
in the background

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as Bob is creating his account.

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Once his account is created,
he just clicks "compose,"

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and now he can write his email
like he does today.

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So he fills in his information,

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and then after that, 
all he has to do is click "send,"

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and just like that,
without understanding cryptography,

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and without doing anything different
from how he writes email today,

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Bob has just sent an encrypted message.

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What we have here
is really just the first step,

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but it shows that
with improving technology,

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privacy doesn't have to be difficult,
it doesn't have to be disruptive.

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If we change the goal from maximizing 
ad revenue to protecting data,

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we can actually make it accessible.

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Now, I know a question
on everybody's minds is,

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okay, protecting privacy,
this is a great goal,

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but can you actually do this

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without the tons of money
that advertisements give you?

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And I think the answer is actually yes,

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because today, we've reached a point

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where people around the world really
understand how important privacy is,

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and when you have that,
anything is possible.

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Earlier this year,

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ProtonMail actually had so many users 
that we ran out of resources,

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and when this happened,
our community of users got together

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and donated half a million dollars.

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So this is just an example
of what can happen

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when you bring the community together
towards a common goal.

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We can also leverage the world.

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Right now,

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we have a quarter of a million people
that have signed up for ProtonMail,

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and these people come from everywhere,

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and this really shows that privacy

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is not just an American
or a European issue,

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it's a global issue
that impacts all of us.

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It's something that we really
have to pay attention to going forward.

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So what do we have to do
to solve this problem?

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Well, first of all,

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we need to support a different
business model for the Internet,

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one that does not rely
entirely on advertisements

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for revenue and for growth.

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We actually need to build a new Internet

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where our privacy and our ability 
to control our data is first and foremost.

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But even more importantly,

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we have to build an Internet 
where privacy is no longer just an option

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but is also the default.

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We have done the first step
with ProtonMail,

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but this is really just the first step
in a very, very long journey.

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The good news I can share
with you guys today,

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the exciting news,
is that we're not traveling alone.

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The movement to protect people's privacy
and freedom online

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is really gaining momentum,

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and today, there are dozens of projects
from all around the world

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who are working together
to improve our privacy.

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These projects protect things
from our chat to voice communications,

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also our file storage, our online search,

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our online browsing,
and many other things.

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And these projects are not backed
by billions of dollars in advertising,

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but they've found support
really from the people,

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from private individuals like you and I
from all over the world.

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This really matters, because ultimately,

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privacy depends on each
and every one of us,

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and we have to protect it now
because our online data

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is more than just a collection
of ones and zeros.

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It's actually a lot more than that.

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It's our lives, our personal stories,

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our friends, our families,

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and in many ways,
also our hopes and our aspirations.

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We need to spend time now
to really protect our right

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to share this only with people
that we want to share this with,

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because without this,
we simply can't have a free society.

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So now's the time for us
to collectively stand up and say,

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yes, we do want to live
in a world with online privacy,

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00:11:42,687 --> 00:11:47,215
and yes, we can work together
to turn this vision into a reality.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)