We live in an era where human activity is producing unprecedented amounts of digital data. The popular saying these days is ‘data is the new oil’. The high value of this data along with the lack of awareness among people about rights has prompted corporations and governments alike to amass and exploit data for their purposes while posing long-term risks to the right to privacy and other civil liberties of citizens around the world. It has become imperative for everyone to protect their data, their privacy and digital communications.
We also live in an era of unprecedented surveillance. The technical capabilities of law enforcement and intelligence agencies are rapidly expanding, and even the best attempts at law reform can’t keep up with these new powers. Over and over again, we’ve seen these capabilities used against protected free speech activities, especially against the speech of marginalized people. Compounding the problem of government surveillance is that of corporate surveillance; we rely on a small handful of data-driven private companies for all of our computing needs, and many of these services are “free” because we are the product. These corporate entities regularly collude with law enforcement to share our private communications, searches, contacts, and more — quite often without our knowledge. By fighting against surveillance, we can reject an Internet controlled by a handful of powerful corporate entities and intelligence agencies, and take back our rights in the digital sphere.
In this context, SFLC.in is partnering with Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom (DAKF) in Kochi to organize a Digital Security Training.
Venue: Ernakulam Public Library, Ernakulam
Date: 6 October 2017
Time: 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
During the workshop we will be demonstrating and training the participants on popular cryptography tools like Tor and Signal. A dedicated session on mobile security will deal with specific measure to secure your phone from various common threats. The following are the objectives of the workshop:
- Learn to protect privacy of your online communications
- Learn to anonymize your online activity
- Learn to encrypt your chat and emails with security that no one can break!
Speakers
Sukhbir Singh is a free software developer currently working with The Tor Project, a non-profit organization that organizes the development of the Tor network and other cryptography projects that provide anonymity and privacy. He is also an advocate of the Tor project and has been going around the world giving talks to promote the use of Tor and other related tools.
Sarath M S is the chief technologist at Software Freedom Law Center, India. He engages in research related to digital freedoms and develops tools for advocacy of civil liberties in the digital sphere. He loves reaching out to people who are new to software freedom, Internet freedom and help them find their space and contribute to the society.
Note: This post is a derivative of “What is the Library Freedom Project?” by Library Freedom Project, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
