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COSCUP 2026 Anonymity Networks Community track: two days, Aug 8–9, free entry, just walk in

COSCUP 2026 Anonymity Networks Community track hero image

Journalists need to protect sources, civil-society groups need to keep member lists and donor records safe, developers want to know whether the tools in their hands actually hold up against surveillance, and ordinary people rattled by scam texts or ad tracking just want a little control back. Under spreading censorship and monitoring, these needs land on the same set of risks: traffic can be intercepted, identities can be traced, and the timing and amount of a single transfer can reconstruct an entire web of relationships.

The Anonymity Networks Community (anoni.net) brings a year of hands-on work with Tor, Tails, and OONI (open-source privacy and anti-censorship tools), plus personal privacy and anonymous payments, to the open-source floor of COSCUP 2026. Across two days at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, we run a full community track, from how the internet and censorship work, through real-world open-source privacy tools, campus Tor nodes, browser tracking, and the national health-insurance database and data-privacy rights, to an anonymous-payments session co-organized with ETHTaipei (Taipei Ethereum Community). Whether you came looking for tools you can use right away or want to contribute to open-source projects, there is a session for you.

Event details

  • Dates: August 8 (Sat) and 9 (Sun), 2026
  • Venue: National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST), Taipei. The community track is in TR-510; the Aug 8 afternoon session co-organized with ETHTaipei is in TR-511.
  • Admission: COSCUP is free, and the community track needs no separate registration. Just show up.
  • Getting there: sessions are drop-in, so you can come and go and don't need to stay all day. For transport and room locations, follow the official COSCUP schedule and venue info, which are authoritative (times may still shift before the event).

See the full schedule and session summaries

Just walk in — you can attend anonymously

For a community that promotes anonymity, attending can itself be anonymous: you leave no personal details behind to sit in on a talk. If you are looking for privacy or anonymity solutions, come straight to TR-510 (the Aug 8 afternoon anonymous-payments session is in TR-511), pick the sessions that fit you, and feel free to chat with speakers and community members between talks.

Two days at a glance

The program is deliberately designed to run from entry-level to protocol-level (the lower-level technical implementation), so you can pick sessions based on your own background. All sixteen sessions and their summaries live on the event page.

Aug 8 morning: four open-source anonymity primers (TR-510). Led by community members, pitched as entry-level and well suited to civil-society groups, news media, and independent journalists, and to anyone meeting these topics for the first time. The four talks cover who the Anonymity Networks Community is and what it does, how to use threat models and metadata (records of who contacted whom, and when) to work out who you're defending against, which open-source tools journalists and NGOs actually use, and why the money flow behind a single donation or transfer already leaks the relationship.

Aug 8 afternoon: the ETHTaipei co-organized anonymous-payments session (TR-511). Five talks push the technical depth to the protocol level, from zero-knowledge proofs with the Citizen Digital Certificate, privacy-preserving KYC, and on-chain stealth addresses, through to private crypto flows and a hands-on workshop. These are on the technical side, so if you have no blockchain background, start with the plain-language morning talks and decide from there. The morning primers cover "why you'd use this" and these afternoon talks carry on into "how it's built": NGOs and journalists can learn the privacy risks in donations and money flows, developers get the protocol-level implementations, and you are welcome to move between the two tracks.

Aug 9 all day: seven accepted talks (TR-510). Topics run from how the internet and censorship work, through OpenWRT (an open-source router OS) home networks, the NTNU campus Tor node, browser-fingerprint tracking, and the right to opt out of the national health-insurance database, to a 2026 privacy guide that spans individuals and organizations. Technical sessions alternate with everyday ones, so developers, journalists, and civil-society groups can all find something that fits.

Where to start, by who you are

  • Newsrooms and independent journalists: start with "Real-world open-source privacy tools" and "Threat models and metadata 101" (Aug 8 morning); on Aug 9 afternoon, "Browser tracking, anti-tracking strategies" unpacks how your everyday browser can leak who you've contacted. Further reading: protecting journalistic sources.
  • Civil-society groups and NGOs: the four Aug 8 morning primers map closely to organizational realities. To weigh anonymous donation channels, start with "Why anonymous payments matter" (plain language, no crypto background), then go deeper with the Aug 8 afternoon ETHTaipei session.
  • Open-source and tech community: Aug 9 is the most technical, with OpenWRT, the NTNU Tor node, and browser-fingerprint research all hands-on; the Aug 8 afternoon zero-knowledge and stealth-address talks are the meatiest protocol-level content. To contribute, see how to contribute.
  • Anyone who wants to take back control online: on Aug 9 afternoon, "Browser tracking, anti-tracking strategies" breaks down how your everyday browser gets tracked, and "Privacy guide 2026" offers practical, device-level protection. Aug 9 morning's "The Workings of the Internet" uses a postcard analogy to show who along the way can read your traffic; it is in English but assumes no technical background.

See you in August at NTUST

You don't have to wait for the event to get to know us. To learn about the community, or to help with Tor, OONI, translation, and running relays, start from how to contribute and claim a topic. On the day, just bring a colleague or two and walk into TR-510.

Updates and contact

Session details and times may still change before the event; for the latest times, follow the official COSCUP schedule. To get community event updates, stay in touch through our newsletter and contact channels.