AUSTIN, Tex. — Edward J. Snowden wants the technology industry to get serious about protecting the privacy of its users and customers.
"When we think about what is happening at the N.S.A. for the last decade, the result has been an adversarial Internet," Mr. Snowden told a crowd of developers and entrepreneurs at the South by Southwest conference here on Monday, speaking by videoconference.
"They are setting fire to the future of the Internet," he added. "You guys are all the firefighters. We need you to help us fix this."
Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified documents that revealed a vast network of government surveillance, told the audience that they "can enforce our rights for technical standards."
Mr. Snowden said he chose the conference, known as SXSW, to speak directly to people with the skills to make mass surveillance significantly more expensive for government agencies — if not impossible. For the past decade, Mr. Snowden said, the N.S.A. had been given free rein to make the Internet less secure by engaging in large-scale sweeps of data.
Mr. Snowden fled the United States last summer and is living at an undisclosed location in Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum. He faces charges in the United States of violating the Espionage Act.
Mr. Snowden appeared remotely at the conference with Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Ben Wizner, director of the A.C.L.U.'s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project and Mr. Snowden's legal adviser, both of whom were on site in Austin. The event was a rare live interview for Mr. Snowden, conducted by Mr. Wizner.
Using technology to mask his whereabouts, Mr. Snowden appeared through a Google Plus videoconference — the irony of which was not lost on Mr. Snowden or others, who joked about the fact that Google was involved in many of Mr. Snowden's revelations.
Appearing before a green screen that had been programmed to display the American Constitution, Mr. Snowden addressed a rapt audience that often broke into applause and cheers. Hundreds packed into an exhibition hall to hear him speak and those who could not find seats stood along the wall or sat on the floor.
At various points during the event, the Internet access in the convention center buckled under the burden of all the people trying to use their devices to tweet or go online. And at times, Mr. Snowden's connection dropped, in part because of the anonymity software he used to mask his location.
Mr. Snowden said he hoped to raise a call to arms to developers, cryptographers and privacy activists to build better tools to protect the privacy of technology users. The goal, he said, was that encryption would ultimately be considered as a necessary, basic protection, and not something easily dismissed as an "arcane black art."
Ultimately, Mr. Snowden said, that will "allow us to reclaim the open and trusted Internet."
He was referring to the many digital encryption protections that are cheap and widely available, but exceedingly difficult for people to use properly.
Mr. Snowden noted that encryption services like Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP software, and anonymity services, like Tor, are available, but are not as easy to use as Google's Gmail service or Chrome browser.
He also praised services like Open WhisperSystems, a suite of applications that aims to make secure communications tools usable, and commonly use.
Ultimately, the tech industry can help fix the problem of security, Mr. Soghoian said. "Most regular people are not going to download some obscure security app," he said. "They're going to use the tools they already have," like Google, Facebook and Skype.
Mr. Snowden repeatedly emphasized that he didn't want to block government agencies from doing their job to protect citizens, but was instead concerned about unwarranted surveillance. He said that if the American government and its technology industry are not held accountable for unwarranted oversight, foreign companies and agencies might feel free to adopt similar mass surveillance tactics and policies.
When companies collect data, he said, they should only "hold it for as long as necessary."
Mr. Snowden's comments Monday echoed his testimony to members of the European Parliament, released Friday, in which he said targeted surveillance was acceptable.
At one point here in Austin, Mr. Snowden answered a question sent via Twitter about whether any data was ever truly safe, from a malicious hacker or an agency like the N.S.A.
"Let's put it this way," he said with a bit of a laugh. "The United States government has assembled a massive investigation team into me personally, into my work with journalists and they still have no idea you know what documents were provided to the journalists, what they have, what they don't have, because encryption works."
Conference attendees applauded and cheered as Mr. Snowden spoke, but the event also drew criticism. Some questioned the format; half the time was devoted to Mr. Soghoian's comments.
Leading up to the event, Representative Mike Pompeo, Republican of Kansas, wrote a letter to SXSW organizers calling for them to cancel the event altogether.
SXSW's conference organizers have made privacy and surveillance a cornerstone of the technology portion of the event. Over the weekend, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, also gave a talk by videoconference.
Mr. Snowden, who was dressed sharply in a white dress shirt and gray blazer for his talk, said he had no regrets about his actions, even though he now faces prosecution and is thought by many to be a traitor, or worse.
"I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and it was violated on a massive scale," he said.
Jenna Wortham reported from Austin, Tex., and Nicole Perlroth from San Francisco.
A version of this article appears in print on 03/11/2014, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Snowden Tries to Rally Tech Conference to Buttress Privacy Shields.
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