So our goal isn’t perfect digital security. That’s impossible what the woods are for!

But what is our goal? I say, let’s make it hard for nazis, cops, and mercenaries to get all internal movement comms and adorable puppy photos. Make it so they need Seth Green from Enemy of the State to get at you. And when the tide turns and the fossil fuel empire begins its rapid decline, maybe Seth Green will realize his masters are not on his side, grow a conscience and defect.

Here are some actions you can take to thwart adversaries starting now:

1) Accept/install updates on all your devices laptops, phones, everything. If the device can’t be updated it should be considered totally unsafe. This applies to flip phones too. Use old phones for burners, install Linux on ancient laptops, or safely dispose. [look for a future post on mobile device updates]

2) If you have a smartphone, use Signal (search “Signal Private Messenger” wherever you get apps). Signal works on your desktop, too (“Signal Private Messenger” in the chrome web store).

3) Your phone identifies you and the people you are with.  Whenever they are powered on (not just when calling/texting).  Burner phones, too.  Possibly even when turned off.  Don’t let this knowledge paralyze you, but if you should ever want to avoid leaving a record of who all you meet with and when, practice leaving your phone at home.  Plus you can think thoughts without being online and reachable all the time.

4) Get a riseup.net email account — it’s not end-to-end encrypted (meaning a motivated ghost of J. Edgar can intercept and read all your email) but the riseup birds have recently spruced things up so that even they themselves can’t read the emails stored on their servers. (If you already use a riseup.net email account, you need to go to user.riseup.net and activate this feature!)

5) Use pad.riseup.net to take meeting notes (keep the web address private, and make sure to save a copy since documents left alone there expire after 30 days). Using g**gle makes it too easy for the State to get their hands on everything.

6) Use calc.mayfirst.org for your jail support spreadsheets to protect people who were willing to take the risk but managed to avoid arrest.

7) Use the Tor Browser to anonymize your web-browsing and help other people maintain their anonymity too.  (The more people who use Tor, the safer it is for everyone.)

8) Just be careful with social media, OK?

We’ll soon be expanding our list of app recommendations with a scorecard system!

Published August 24, 2017