There’s a whole world of information out there on , but it doesn’t have to take much time to learn enough to make yourself safer.
On why we should care about digital security
- Glenn Greenwald on why privacy matters
- Why “I Have Nothing to Hide” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance, from Moxie Marlinspike, the maker of the fully encrypted texting app, Signal, 2013
- Primer on privacy from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading digital privacy advocacy group.
- Reporters Love Chatrooms But Worry Security Is Slacking, from Fast Company. Rather damning about Slack, which we use at IEB.
- Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departmentsfrom The Atlantic, about local police department spending on NSA-grade electronic surveillance equipment.
- Stingray Tracking Devices: Who’s Got Them? Stingrays are devices for capturing cell phone data if you happen to be in range of them, say during a protest.
- Racial Disparities in Police ‘Stingray’ Surveillance, Mapped
- More on stingrays.
Other actions we have seen
- Protesters’ phones confiscated at the 2017 Inauguration
- At the border, you may be compelled to provide your phone’s password, or worse, and this was during Obama, from WNYC’s On The Media
- What Are Your Rights if Border Agents Want to Search Your Phone?, from The New York Times. More up to date on border crossings.
What to do?
These are all in the “primer” category:
- Excellent, comprehensive resource on social networking, designed for human rights NGOs across the world.
- A good overview for activist organizations: of why, what typical risks are, and practical steps to manage them; with an international perspective. A good mix of practical and conceptual.
- How to encrypt your entire life in less than an hour. A concise but practical guide.
- How to Keep Messages Secure, from Teen Vogue
- privacytools.io: You are being watched! Knowledge, encryption and privacy tools to protect you against global mass surveillance. Includes a link to Glenn Greenwald’s TED talk on why privacy is important, as well as links to better browsers.
- Subreddit on digital privacy. Interestingly or frighteningly, lots of the posts disappear because their authors want to leave no trace. A great place for the latest.
- Mitigating internet trollstorms. “Being the target of mass online and offline harassment, whether because of sexism, racism, or other issues, can be overwhelming and devastating. This document intends to provide actionable guidance for people who are being attacked or who are concerned about being attacked in the future, and includes both information security, physical security, and self-care advice drawn from the experiences of the Geek Feminism community.”
- Hackblossom’s “DIY Guide to Feminist Cybersecurity” provides a good basic primer on cybersecurity for the layperson. Y también está disponible en español.
- WNYC’s The Privacy Paradox
People to look for who have written, trained, and thought about this
- Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Morgan Marquis-Boire
- Eva Galperin
- Micah Lee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Matt Mitchell, organizer of hackathons in Harlem for blacktivists