Digital Security

Digital security can feel like a scary topic, both because it can be emotionally challenging and because the learning curve can be steep. The list of ‘to-dos’ often feels overwhelming, even for the most technologically adept.

The workshops I run (often with some excellent co-collaborators!) break things down so that everyone can feel ownership over digital security basics and feel more empowered both over their personal digital security and to share back what they’ve learned to their collectives and organizations.

I think of digital security work as a form of mutual aid and community care. Much of what I know has been taught to me by wonderful comrades, friends, and mentors and via many of the resources below.

Workshops

White nationalists and other right-wing actors have a history of targeting organizers for harassment, intimidation, and doxxing. As we decide how we want to exist in digital spaces, these workshops will give participants the tools to prevent personal information from being found in places that they did not intend it to be. Being public about our political work is powerful, but we can only make consensual choices about the information we share if we fully understand the risks and how to mitigate them. Equipping ourselves and our communities with knowledge and skills to protect ourselves is a key part of ensuring our movements are sustainable in the long term.

Digital Security 101: This presentation is geared toward those who have no- or very little- prior experience with digital security. We will explain what digital security is, why it’s important, and how/why it applies to you and your communities. We will introduce you to new terminology and concepts in ways that are easy to understand for newbies and using a trauma-informed, feminist lens, with the goal of demystifying digital security so it can feel more accessible to you. We can tailor our content to your specific organizing context, and can incorporate some hands-on work as well, if desired.

Digital Security 201: This workshop is geared toward those who have some prior understanding of digital security but who have yet to take much action on changing their digital practices. This interactive workshop introduces participants to digital security through a feminist, trauma informed lens and is an accessible, hands-on session. We’ll cover performing a personal and community risk assessment, locking down social media, installing and using a password manager, enabling 2-factor authentication, performing safe(r) research, and how to begin scrubbing personal information from data brokers. Participants will leave with "homework" to keep working on and resources to bring back to their communities.

If you’re interested in chatting further about digital security training, please reach out using the email address in the footer of this site.

Resources

List last updated Spring 2021. Compiled over time and collaboratively.

Safe(r) Communication

  • Download Signal (phone and desktop available) and ask your friends + family to join you there. Check out Telegram as another option.
  • Make an alternative gmail account for things that you would like unattached to your main email account, and make a ProtonMail account for things that should be encrypted and secure.
  • Use a Riseup pad for a more secure google docs alternative (be careful, the pads expire!) Cryptpad takes a little more time to learn it and become comfortable, but has a suite of apps like docs, slides, spreadsheets, and a file system like google drive.
  • Learn more about encryption and why it’s cool in this cute video from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and this 101 guide.

Safe(r) Research

Safe(r) Online

  • Try to dox yourself or do it with a buddy and try to dox each other. What can you find out with just the person’s name? What can you find out with their name and their email? What can you connect them to? Can you find their hometown or current address?
  • Review your online accounts and lock shit down using COACH, a step-by-step guide here to hold your hand through the whole thing. Put an hour on your calendar, a good playlist on, and do the thing.
  • COACH will walk you through removing yourself from data brokers, but here are two more resources:
  • Beautiful doxxing guide from Crimethinc Doxcare Prevention + Aftercare
  • Up your password game! Play with Use a Passphrase to start generating easy-to-remember, hard-to-guess passphrases. Read up on different password managers and pick the one that’s best for you.

Other cool tools to check out!

  • Protest Attendance: Remember the spectrum of 'secure to actually usable for the average person'. The following links are in order of intensity, start with the first one:
  • Direct Action / Protest Planning:
    • Use Signal with disappearing messages enabled for anything sensitive.
    • Use CryptPad as a shared doc if you need a shared doc for sensitive information. Read more about how CryptPad privacy works here.
    • Assume there are fascists/government on any public Zoom calls and Slack channels and share information accordingly. Think about informants along with your risk assessment.
    • Check out Jitsi as an encrypted video platform
  • More doxx support:
    • Equality Labs is an amazing South Asian org using digital security, art, and community research to end white supremacy, caste apartheid, Islamophobia, and religious intolerance. They have support available for rapid response needs and a badass Anti Doxxing Guide for Activists.
    • Send safer nudes with this rad zine from Coding Rights, available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
    • If your risk assessment says so, there are professional removal services like DeleteMe for extra security (Recommended if you are a journalist, frontline organizer, or if you've been doxxed already). Your organization may be able to cover the cost of removal services.
    • Good Feminist Cybersecurity Guide by HackBlossom if you haven’t had enough guides.
  • I use the internet every day: