Don’t Spy on Us!
It’s the end of the day here, and what a day it’s been with 3 causes, 2 manifestos and so many hashtags I lost count! ;-) Organised chaos springs to mind… But it’s been worth it. I’ve done my best to spread the word and went to my first CryptoParty (and Unconference :) at English PEN, which I just thought I’d briefly recap. The function was at their offices in London which were probably a bit small for the event even though there was a small lecture theatre space included.
Luckily as the numbers were limited it wasn’t too crowded, just very comfy. The mix was interesting – a few business people, some good hackers, information & freedom people, quite a few IT people (like me :) and just many who were interested and wanted to find out more. There was certainly a wide range of topics covered (in no particular order):
- Secure SMS
- Smart Phone Security
- Secure Storage
- Encrypting Mail
- Safe Web Browsing
- Why Bother? I have nothing to hide…
- A Secure OS – Qubes OS
- How Google and Facebook make money from you
- PGP
- Politics
- TruCrypt (the software Snowden et al use)
In all, I’d say a Total Success! I was able to chat with many people and my wife was educated on many issues, some of which I’d talked about. The great thing was that it wasn’t just me blabbering on and there were some interesting freedom and rights perspectives that were also given.
For me, it was great to meet others of like mind, that simply want to be able to express themselves freely and without fear of any consequences now and in the future.
One of the key messages was that privacy should be the default (ah – remember the good ‘ol days ;) and that we should politically move towards this.
In the mean time however, we need to implement “stop gap measures” that increase peoples privacy by encrypted communication, storage and working. This has given me some focus for my contribution.
I’d planned on leaving Google this year anyway and blog about it. I can now see that I actually have a greater need to reclaim my privacy, and I’ll be blogging about that also. I can’t wait to see what happens on next years The Day We Fight Back, Necessary and Proportionate, to Stop The NSA, and Stop Spying on US! Or as I’d like to call it – Information Freedom Day :-)
changearc 
Hopefully, someone had the crypto key that opened the bar up for drinks.
Hey, it was literally an Open Event – the bar was open from the get-go :-)
Duh, I shoulda deduced that. W00t!