I refuse to accept a censored Internet. Join Me at FOSDEM 27

The Digital Dissident devroom at FOSDEM 2027 is intended to bring together developers, researchers, activists, and people from communities facing censorship to improve tools for digital freedom. Its central argument is that people under threat rely on an end-to-end chain, not a single privacy or anti-censorship product: they must reach the internet, communicate without exposing metadata, preserve and verify evidence, publish it safely, and use devices and infrastructure that may themselves be compromised. A weakness at any handoff can defeat the whole chain, yet related projects and discussions are currently spread across separate technical communities.

The proposed program will focus on interoperability, shared threat models, documented failures, and practical engineering rather than product pitches. Topics include censorship circumvention and resistance to traffic fingerprinting, metadata-protecting communication, secure reporting and publishing, device security, usability for at-risk users, and research into censorship methods. The organizers also want to address dependence on centralized platforms and services. Talks should explain their threat models and limitations, and avoid details that could endanger users. The room will complement, not compete with, FOSDEM’s broader Decentralized Internet and Privacy devroom, with schedules coordinated between them. The call for participation runs from October 24 to November 30, 2026; speakers are to be notified December 2. FOSDEM takes place in Brussels on January 30-31, 2027.