Tech Learning Collective

Technology education for radical organizers and revolutionary communities.

  • September 26, 2020 4:00 PM (-0400) September 26, 2020 5:30 PM
  • Remote
  • Status: CONFIRMED

Tickets are no longer available for this event.

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Event description

Get your message out without revealing who you are by publishing anonymously on the “Darknet.” This workshop shows you how to create Tor Onion services for Web sites through free tools like OnionShare, and even by setting up Tor servers that are built and configured from scratch manually. You’ll learn about how Tor helps keep both publishers and consumers private and anonymous online, as well as how law enforcement might successfully de-anonymize poorly configured Onion services through host bypass, fingerprint correlation, and other similar attacks.

Workshop Description

It’s often said that if you want to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh—or they’ll kill you. Sometimes, humor isn’t a sufficient defense. For these situations, the only remaining defense is to become anonymous. In this deep-dive workshop on anonymous Internet publishing, you’ll learn about a special class of proxy server called a Tor Onion service that makes it possible to publish Web sites or offer network-capable services more or, if you’re really skilled, completely anonymously.

Publishing something truly anonymously on the Internet today is getting more and more difficult. And yet, with “real name” requirements pushed by social media giants like Facebook, law enforcement agents demanding travelers’ online usernames and passwords at border crossings, and global political campaigns to undermine or outright backdoor privacy-preserving encryption technologies, anonymous publishing is also getting more and more important. Whistleblowers need to be able to leak or publish anonymously to stay safe from legal and especially extralegal reprisals, and so too do politically vocal bloggers, investigative journalists, and citizens.

In this specialized workshop, you’ll see how Darknet Web sites like the now-famous Silk Road, as well as less controversial Web sites like the New York Times, actually use the same underlying technology called Tor Onion services to create their respective censorship-resistant publications. You’ll also be exposed to some of the techniques that law enforcement often tries to use to de-anonymize Onion services, and learn how to defend against them. By the end of this workshop, you’ll have a working knowledge of numerous critical modern technologies including Web servers, network relays, and Tor’s famous onion-routing protocol.

As this is a remote/online-only event, there is no physical class space, but attendance is still limited to 15 students, so purchase your ticket now to reserve your spot.

To participate in our webinars, you will need access to a modern Web browser such as an up-to-date copy of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. You will also need a reliable Internet connection. We recommend disabling Wi-Fi and plugging your computer in to a hard-wired Ethernet network cable for the duration of the webinar, if possible.

If you would like to share your video screen or appear on camera, you will need to have and activate your own camera, such as the one built-in to many modern laptops. Similarly, to speak with the rest of the webinar participants, you will need a microphone. If you do choose to activate your microphone, we ask that you please plug in headphones/ear buds or use a headset in order to help reduce audio feedback loops that can degrade the webinar experience for other participants.

Please refer to our workshops and webinars FAQ for additional tips and advice before you join the video conference.

As with all Tech Learning Collective events, racism, queerphobia, transphobia, sexism, “brogrammer,” “manarchist,” or any kind of similarly awful behavior will result in immediate removal from class without a refund. Please refer to our lightweight social rules for details on our strictly enforced no-tolerance policy against bigotry of any kind.

About Tech Learning Collective

Tech Learning Collective is an apprenticeship-based technology school that trains politically self-motivated individuals in the arts of hypermedia, Information Technology, and radical political practice. We offer unparalleled free, by-donation, and low-cost computer classes on topics ranging from fundamental computer literacy to the same offensive computer hacking techniques used by national intelligence agencies and military powers (cyber armies). For more information and to enroll, visit TechLearningCollective.com.

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