Digital security for the next four years with Dan Phiffer

Description

It’s very likely that the incoming Federal Government will alter the social contract of how the USA behaves toward its people. How can we resist these changes effectively? How can we plan for the worst without ceding our fights to an opposition eager to move the political goal posts? We will need to get better at digital security, collectively, and help to protect our friends.This two hour workshop/discussion will cover basic digital security topics including understanding threat models, end-to-end encryption, and how/when to use specific tools. We will also explore more unorthodox approaches to protecting communications using self-hosted software and the importance of cultivating private spaces that let us act collectively in public.The workshop is open to those who are inexperienced with digital security and also to those who have a working knowledge of it. We will discuss the tools used in digital communications, but also the motivations for resisting surveillance in our present American political context. Lead facilitator: Dan Phiffer is a programmer and artist based in Brooklyn working on projects that use computer networks as a raw material. In the Fall of 2011 Dan created Occupy.here as an alternative darknet web forum for the Occupy Wall Street encampment and its affiliated working groups. That project has informed related efforts in digital pedagogy and experiments building DIY self-hosted social networks. For his day job, Dan helps build open source mapping tools at Mapzen and is an Impact Resident at Eyebeam Art + Tech.