Technology Will Destroy Democracy Unless This Man Stops It

Alex Halderman has hacked electronic voting machines, circumvented government censorship software and dismantled a $100 million NSA surveillance program. Thank God he’s one of the good guys.

- Steve Friess

“Let’s take a survey around the room,” says Jacob Appelbaum, a notorious hacktivist the National Security Agency is definitely monitoring, as we sit on the floor beneath a low-slung canopy illuminated by red strobe lighting. “Charles over here wrote basically every single base station for free cell-phone software in existence. Dorian is, well, just look at the mustache.” It’s a handlebar waxed at its ends into antennae. “That thing is a story in itself. He does a whole bunch of cryptic stuff in France. I just don’t even know what to say about him. I don’t want to get him in trouble.” He and Dorian both cackle. Appelbaum continues. “This guy works for Laura Poitras on leaking the Snowden documents. Her? She’s a kickboxer, and she can murder you. Write a nice article. She’s actually one of the world’s leading lawyers on digital privacy. Nadia over there is one of the most badass cryptographers ever. Everybody around the table might look counterculture, but they’re amazing people in their field in every way.

“And then,” he says, finishing the next thought with a wordless, bemused nod toward Alex Halderman. At two A.M. in Hamburg, on the last night of one of the world’s biggest hacker conventions, when everyone else is doing shots of fancy European spirits, Halderman is sipping tea and sitting cross-legged but ramrod straight in khakis and an immaculately pressed navy button-down. “And then there’s Alex. He loves oxford shirts. That’s his only sin.”