activism

Raben und Krähen. Das waren Frauen und Kinder.

Posted by Christian

Aus der Befragung des ex-Drohnenpiloten Brandon Bryant im NSA-Untersuchungsausschuss des deutschen Bundestages, 15. Oktober 2015

Flisek: Gab es in Ihrer Praxis Fälle, wo es zu Kollateralschäden gekommen ist, wo Menschen im Umfeld des Ziels zu Schaden gekommen sind?

Bryant: Ja.

Flisek: Einzelfälle? Worüber unterhalten wir uns, war das Regelfall?

Bryant: Ziemlich. Drei Kennzeichen: Männer in milit. Alter. Dann Raben und Krähen. Das waren Frauen und Kinder. Sonst Männer in milit. Alter, d.h. über 12 Jahre. Das waren legitime Ziele. Würde sagen, das sind Kollateralschäden, weil nicht entsprechend UN-Terminologie.

Flisek: Per se Männer mit Aussehen über 12 Jahre als milit. Ziele eingestuft – zum Abschuss freigegeben?

Bryant: Ja.

Flisek: Woran hat man das Alter festgemacht?

Bryant: Wussten wir nicht. Man hat gutes Bild von Körper über Infrarot bekommen. Konnte gut sehen: Jugendlicher, Kind, Frau, Mann.

May 2015: 1st Chaos Cologne conference @KHM, co-organized with CCC Cologne

Posted by Christian

Organized by Christian Sievers & Mathias Antlfinger/KHM together with Chaos Computer Club Cologne, taking over large parts of KHM for a weekend in May. We had over 550 visitors and around 45 speakers and performers, forming a good mixture of students, artists, hackers and makers. See http://chaos.cologne/ for the program.

Here are videos of the talks, performances and presentations: https://media.ccc.de/browse/conferences/chaoscologne/1c2/index.html or https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_IxoDz1Nq2Zo6s7JkBA48L6w3terUsFh

Mini_1Ladung_FIN

Surveillance Self-Defense for LGBTQ kids

Posted by Christian

lbqt ssd

More timely than ever, now that Germany again wants to retain everyone’s data.
Forward this to anyone who might need it…

The latest addition to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self-Defense series is a set of tools and instructions aimed specifically at LGBTQ kids, who have unique threat models (being outed) and adversaries (homophobic friends, parents, pastors).

EFF’s guide gives already marginalized and threatened kids the ability to explore information related to LGBTQ issues with a much lower risk of censorship (by parental or school censorware, which typically blocks information related to sexuality) and discovery by snoops.

Tips and tools to help you more safely access LGBTQ resources, navigate social networks, and avoid snoopers.
If you lack proper support and access to LGBTQ resources, this guide teaches you how to explore such resources online in a safer way to help avoid accidental outing to your peers, family, or online advertisers as a result of online tracking or nosy snoopers.

* An Introduction to Threat Modeling

* Choosing Your Tools

* Creating Strong Passwords

* How to: Circumvent Online Censorship

* How to: Encrypt Your iPhone

* How to: Use Signal – Private Messenger

* Protecting Yourself on Social Networks

* Communicating with Others

(via BoingBoing)

Transmediale: real life and media art, as seen by the press

Posted by Christian

Und dann waren da die Medienkünstler, ihrerseits verblüffend unerschütterlich in ihrem Glauben, dass es menschenfreundlichere Algorithmen schon richten werden, ein bisschen Open-Source-Software, etwas Netz-Dezentralisierung und ein paar ganz clevere technologische Subversiongesten. Sie nennen es “Gaming the System”. Warum nicht mal das Smartphone mit all den fiesen Tracking- und Fitness-Apps ein paar Tage lang auf eine Spielzeug-Drohne kleben oder an der Hauskatze festschnallen und so die Daten verzerren? Und warum nicht mal, wie die Künstlerin Jennifer Lynn Morone, sich selbst als Firma eintragen und so zum Gründer, CEO und Produkt seiner eigenen Daten machen, um sich aus der Ohnmacht gegenüber den Datensammlern zu befreien? Smarte Gesten waren das, und in ihrer kritischen Zuversichtlichkeit doch so erschreckend wie symptomatisch hilflos.

Und das ist noch eine wohlmeinende Kritik.

Learn crypto while it's still legal

Posted by Christian

The 1990s crypto-wars seem to get started again. Under the new proposed measures it will be illegal to use secure end-to-end crypto like GPG, or even iMessage and Whatsapp. It’s even more important to learn how to use it then. We’re going to have another Cryptoparty at the upcoming Chaos.Cologne conference here at the KHM in May. Or just talk to us and we’ll show you how. It’s not hard to get started.

The news:
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/fnord-1.2314768
http://boingboing.net/2015/01/13/what-david-cameron-just-propos.html

What you can do:
Surveillance Self-Defense (in English) https://ssd.eff.org/
Digitale Selbstverteidigung (auf deutsch) https://digitalcourage.de/support/digitale-selbstverteidigung

All Cameras Are Police Cameras

Posted by Christian

All Cameras Are Police Cameras
Great essay by James Bridle, about the advances in locking down public space.

Surveillance images are all “before” images, in the sense of “before and after”. The “after” might be anything: an earthquake, a riot, a protest, a war. Any system reliant on flow, which is all networks from vehicle traffic to commercial supply to video feeds to the internet itself, view disruptions within the same negative moral context. Surveillance images attain the status of evidence for unknown crimes the moment they are created, and merely await the identification of the moment they were created for. Automated imagery criminalises its subject.

Read on for what happened just walking down the streets of London documenting security cameras.

http://shorttermmemoryloss.com/nor/

I wonder what happened to the imagery here? Strangely drained of colour and, presumably, all meta data.

"Citizen Four" next week

Posted by Christian

As we’re going to go to Dortmund to see “Citizen Four” next week, here are some hand picked articles about the background to the film and its making.

Laura Poitras on Filming Edward Snowden and Her New Documentary About Him, Citizenfour – in Vogue Magazine! A reminder of how far this story has infected everyone’s minds now http://www.vogue.com/2865709/laura-poitras-edward-snowden-documentary-citzenfour

Berlin’s digital exiles: where tech activists go to escape the NSA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/09/berlins-digital-exiles-tech-activists-escape-nsa I sent this to some British friends to try and explain why I’m so upset.

Plus an older interview with Constanze Kurz, about the Berlin exile scene. By Jörg Heiser. http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/kolumnen/spurlos-verbunden/?lang=en (also available auf deutsch http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/kolumnen/spurlos-verbunden/ )