IT

SAG shared calendar with all seminar events, constantly updated.

We  have a shared calendar with all seminar dates. Maintained by Christian and Julia in a collaborative effort, this calendar will always hold the latest info about seminar events, and some more stuff we think is relevant to the group.

You can see the calendar in a web page here.

Another way to access it is to subscribe to it with your favorite calendaring application.

To do that, select and copy this address:
https://kalender.khm.de/public.php/sag/SAG-Public-Events/
Then go to e.g. Calendar.app and choose Calendar -> Subscribe (-> Abonnieren on German systems). Paste the entire address including the https://.
Accept and trust the security certificate, and confirm with your computer password.

Make sure to switch ‘Auto-Update’ on (set it to an hour or so).

The procedure is similar on smart phones and with other calendaring apps. Happy to help if you need setting it up!

Around the World Conference 2014 on Privacy and Surveillance in the Digital Age

http://aroundtheworld.ualberta.ca/the-archives/

2014 Privacy and Surveillance in the Digital Age

The Around the World Conference is an experiment that brings together a research dialogue without the environmental cost of traditional conferences. Institutes and researchers are invited to participate either through presenting or by joining in the discussion. The conference is live-streamed world-wide and archived after the event.

aroundtheworld_background_001

Learn crypto while it's still legal

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

Introduction to Cyber Security – free online course

Happy to advise if you think this could be something for you…

We shop online. We work online. We play online. We live online. As our lives increasingly depend on digital services, the need to protect our information from being maliciously disrupted or misused is really important.

This free online course will help you to understand online security and start to protect your digital life, whether at home or work. You will learn how to recognise the threats that could harm you online and the steps you can take to reduce the chances that they will happen to you.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/introduction-to-cyber-security

let's Cryptoparty again

Cryptoparty sticker

Mittwoch, 30. April 2014
ab 18.00 Uhr bis ca. 21.00 Uhr Workshops und freies Rumhängen

Cryptopartys sind eine globale DIY-Initiative zur Emanzipation aus der technologischen Unmündigkeit.

Wir meinen, das Thema der digitalen Rundum-Überwachung sollte gerade auch an der Kunsthochschule für Medien kritisch beleuchtet werden. Deshalb freuen wir uns besonders, bereits die zweite Cryptoparty zu veranstalten.

Wieder geht es um die Rückeroberung der Datenhoheit. In entspannter Atmosphäre wird konkretes Wissen rund um Verschlüsselungstechniken und die digitale Selbstverteidigung vermittelt. Bitte Laptop, Notebook oder Vergleichbares mitbringen, um gleich vor Ort loslegen zu können.

Eine Initiative des Surveillant Architectures Seminars mit Jürgen Fricke.

GLASMOOG, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln

p.s.
wer sich vorbereiten will oder morgen keine Zeit hat:
(auf deutsch): https://digitalcourage.de/support/digitale-selbstverteidigung
(English): Eff’s Surveillance Self-Defense site: https://ssd.eff.org/

Ich bringe diese hier mit

new developments

New Internet Monitor report: “Measuring Internet Activity”
Internet Monitor is delighted to announce the publication of “Measuring Internet Activity: A (Selective) Review of Methods and Metrics,” the second in a series of special reports that focus on key events and new developments in Internet freedom, incorporating technical, legal, social, and political analyses.

“Measuring Internet Activity,” authored by Robert Faris and Rebekah Heacock, explores current efforts to measure digital activity within three areas: infrastructure and access, control, and content and communities.
From Internet Monitor, “New Internet Monitor report: ‘Measuring Internet Activity: A (Selective) Review of Methods and Metrics'”
About Internet Monitor | @thenetmonitor

what paranoid networking physically looks like (and sounds like)

From a discussion about protecting yourself against most ‘black bag’ and ‘evil maid’ attacks.

put distinctive scratches into all your peripherals, take a photo, and regularly check that the scratches are identical to the photo. This is how weapons inspectors ensure the seals protecting weapons caches have not been tampered with. The seals are scratched in a distinctive way that can’t be forged, then check periodically. Use tamper evident tape on your devices to slow down a burglar that wants to plant a keylogger in your keyboard.

The computer in question is an ‘air gapped’ machine, which means it is not connected to any network. You’d use it for extreme operational security (i.e. working with leaked NSA documents).

If you have a desktop [computer], put super glue in all the USB interfaces so they aren’t functional. Do the same to any interface on the mother boards that could attach removable media. Try to make the case impossible to open (bonus points for encasing it in cement except for the fan, CD tray, cables for keyboard/mouse, power cable and power button).

Turns out that really isolating a computer that you work on is a very hard thing to do. The latest threat seems to be some kind of super-malware that can bridge air gaps by communicating via a computer’s built-in speaker and mic. Allegedly it ‘talks’ at around 18kHz which is a frequency most people cannot hear.

a restaurant’s walk-in freezer is the poor man’s faraday cage

Wikileaks targeting surveillance companies

There’s a new round of Wikileaks disclosures. Hurray! This time they are revealing internal documents from surveillance companies from around the world. If you want to know what’s possible, and where to get it from (if you have some spare change), check out http://wikileaks.org/the-spyfiles.html

As a starting point, you might want to have a look at what a local company, DigiTask, the makers of the much maligned and ridiculed Staatstrojaner (see our post from October 11) have on offer. I like the look of the WiFi interceptor! http://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/list/company-name/digitask.html

P.S. wow, this is a lot of information. Haven’t heard that term before: “Offensive Security”. Used as a euphemism for actively intruding into a system in order to insert a trojan/spyware.

 

 

 

 

 

Blog software updated

I managed to update our blog to the latest version of WordPress, so it’s now up and running again. Alas, the old theme by Florian doesn’t work any more, so please bear with us while we’re figuring out a new look for the blog!
If you think you have a good idea for a design, or know a nice theme, let me know.
Christian