Tech Tools for Activism

The second Hacktionlab tech tools project. These minutes from Hacklab Manchester 2011 contain some of the results of the discussion there.

ToDo list

• Decided on a new format/style guide (IRC meeting)
• Make a resources list
• Make a participants list
• write up workflow plan (Ben G)
• Organize IRC meeting (Ben G)
• Enhance the Style Guide
• Go through and check your own original contribtions - take out what you think isn't relelvant. Link out to more information and reduce the word count. (can we have a meeting about style and aims before we do this? Ben Green 20th Sep 2011)

Resource List

• Tech tools for activists - Version one of the booklet
• http://booki.flossmanuals.net/tech-tools-for-activists-2/_edit/ - editable live version of the document
• Booki User manual - http://en.flossmanuals.net/Booki-User-Guide/

Resources we can link out to

• Tech Tools resources links

Booki Developer Interaction

IRC interaction is recommended and happens at:

server: freenode.net
channel: #flossmanuals

Participants List

• Co-ordinator/slave driver (Ben G)
• Illustrator
  • Penguin: spoken to an artist and a graphic designer - both up for doing some illustrations / designs / cartoons. Yay! Have suggested they hold off until we make more progress on the content.
• Design Consultant

First IRC Meeting Agenda

IRC logs for TTFA2 meeting

• Sorting out how links to web documentation. (MH)
• Review of current quality levels. (BG)
• Agree / restate what the target audience is for TTfA (penguin)
• Agree / restate what we are trying to convey (e.g. why to do something, how do do something) (penguin)
• Should each article have a common structure? If so, what? (penguin)
• Should there be more kittens in the booklet? (tabby)
• Develop task list to move forward & assign roles as far as possible (penguin)

Content Review

Please tag any comments and suggestions as your own.

We should remove the user journeys, this was pretty much agreed at the Manchester meet up. (BenG) We should replace them with popout info boxes. (BenG)

Secure Communication

Securing your Email

First Thought

---

I don't like the way the booki platform handles viewing the current version of the chapter. It opens a javascript sub-window that I can't navigate using my browser controls. It would be much easier to handle the content on either this wiki or we.riseup.net, or if booki opened the chapter for viewing in a new window.

I will now review this chapter in its current form, then proceed to make suggestions about how it might be changed to fit with the new style as discussed at IRC_logs_for_TTFA2_meeting

Content review

---

Para 1

The user story is grand but the use of bold face seems a bit random.

Paras 2-end

This jumps into addressing the specific example raised in the user story, in the way that I would probably talk about it to someone in the pub. That's OK for chatting in the pub, but maybe in this setting we could be more systematic about how we broach these matters? So in this case, instead of diving in to the example, we could start by explaining the informatic nature of an email transaction.

• What is the structure of a transaction, and who are the parties to it?
• What information is available to each party?
  • What your ISP and 'public networks' can see
  • What your email provider can see
  • What your (CC'ed) recipients can see
• How can the mail user control what information is available to whom?
  • Use of secure tunnels to protect against ISP snooping
  • Use of trusted email providers
  • Use of encrypted email
    • Certification
    • PGP
• Why would the user wish to do that?
  • General desire for privacy
  • Avoiding targetted advertising
  • Protecting campaigns against specific threats
    • Corporate surveillance - e.g. EDF snooping on GreenPeace
    • Government surveillance - network profiling, keeping yourself out of their sights
    • Pigs that want to nick you for doing what needs to be done - minimising exposure of your most sensitive information
• etc...

New Format

---

Having said all that, we're now looking at writing "Noddy and Big-Ears Send Rad Emails and Nobody Gets Nicked", so most of the above 'technical detail' will have to be lodged somewhere on-line (this wiki?) and referred to in a shortened footnote. So what can we do in the new form, on paper, for TTfA2?

I'd suggest keeping the same user story, followed by a paragraph that introduces the idea that what one types as an email might reach many different eyes, then list who those eyes might belong to. Then the 'action' section would link to a page on this wiki, structure something like I suggest above, and actions the reader can take:

• Control on-line identity (needs a seperate chapter) and limit exposure
• Use trusted email providers
• Use SSL and VPN if available
• Use PGP and control local storage

anyhow, thanks to everyone who wrote the current page - I couldn't have thought of all this without reading what was there already

Green Computing

This is a a title section with no contents, why? (BenG)