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
“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!
“Fun class [and] a variety of unique courses”
I took the Tech Learning Collective’s “Exploring Cyberspace: Network Sniffing and Scanning” last night. Fun class—these folks offer a variety of unique courses.
“enlightening[,…] practical, and solution-oriented”
I joined Tech Learning Collective’s “Practical Digital Security” workshop because I had heard how easy it was to find out personal information about people on websites without their knowledge or permission and their workshop description promised to show me how I could protect myself from this sort of thing.
It did not disappoint! Not only did the workshop cover this topic directly, the instructor showed us exactly how “doxing” happens and the specific data broker websites that are used. For me, it was enlightening to learn about specific companies involved (augh, Facebook, of course!) and tools that I could use to automatically notify me of my personal information being out there, like Google Alerts and Firefox Monitor.
But there was so much more, too. I’m impressed at how practical and solution-oriented the whole experience felt. At the end of the workshop, I got the feeling that everyone got all their questions answered, which is really rare for classes like this.
“welcoming for beginners, but still engaging for more experienced people”
Read what
had to say about
Tech Learning Collective
on
July 24, 2019:
[A]fter checking the[ir Gone Phishing workshop] out, I highly recommend!! I’ve gone to a lot of meetups, including a few cybersecurity workshops, and what they are doing is really top of the line. The workshop was a good middle ground of welcoming for beginners, but still engaging for more experienced people. I learned so much! It was well-paced and had a tight, manageable scope, but I also walked away with a ton of links of additional resources to explore on my own time. So if you’re in the NYC area and have the chance, definitely check out their calendar!