Putin’s brutal aggression in Ukraine has put cyberwar back in headlines. Recently, Carey Parker, host of the Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons podcast, reached out to us at Tech Learning Collective to talk through some of the issues the war in Ukraine has once again raised for laypeople who may be newly concerned about the reliance we’ve developed as a society on digital infrastructures. So, late last month, we sat down with him for another conversation about what anyone and, arguably, everyone could be doing not only to keep themselves safer online, but also prepared in the event of an escalation of hostilities in a cyber theater, rapid shifts in political climates, or even just natural disasters that affect telecommunication abilities.
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Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons: Luck Favors the Prepared

The Enragés: Next Time the Pendulum Swings, Part 2

Earlier this month, we republished part 1 of our interview with The Enragés, where we discussed our blog post, Imagining an Optimistic Cyber-Future. In this post, you’ll find the conclusion of our conversation along with a (somewhat rushed) transcript of the same. Here, we touch on ways in which capitalism has constrained people’s telecommunication abilities, we describe some of our inspiration from earlier political thinkers, and we even answer a couple of listener questions.
Testimonials
“just the right combination of informative and challenging”
I really enjoyed the Clearing Away the Clouds class on networking. I know only a tiny bit about networking but am trying to learn more to be a responsible and safe digital citizen. This class was just the right combination of informative and challenging. The instructutor definitely dove into some really complicated ideas but always took the time to go back and make sure that we understood.
“I want to take like more than half of [their] workshops”
I want to take like more than half of the workshops offered by the Tech Learning Collective.
“extremely well organized[, with] a deep reservoir of knowledge”
The workshop I most recently attended, File Sharing for Fun and Profit, was extremely well organized and was a great presentation demonstrating the ease of using BitTorrent as well as its benefits. Better still, since the instructor at every TLC workshop I’ve attended so far mentions resources that I probably wouldn’t have learned as much about in other ways, I’m often able to double the number of valuable resources I get from attending the workshop by entering the names of things I learn about from the workshop into the search box of several search engines.
It’s clear that TLC’s instructors possess a deep reservoir of knowledge about BitTorrent and the other subjects in their curriculum. I’d encourage anyone wishing to learn more about BitTorrent, Tor, PGP, Signal, etcetera, to enroll in a TLC workshop or course in order to get the opportunity to draw from this rich reservoir!
“gay and good[,] Tech Learning Collective is rad”
If you’re looking for something gay and good to take your mind off the [Covid-19] quarantine blues, Tech Learning Collective is rad. It’s a fun way to pick up some skills for hacking the planet without having to interact with tech-industry bootcamp recruitment bullshit.