We officially launched our new project, Trackography, at the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg in December. Find out where your data goes, and through which countries and companies, when you read your favourite newspapers online.
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In the Loop
February 2015
In the Loop comes out every month. Catch up on what we've been up to at Tactical Tech, find out about launches and events, and look through some of the more interesting things we've found on the internet this month (culled from our Twitter feed).
TRACKOGRAPHY: YOU NEVER READ ALONE
VISUALISING INFORMATION FOR ADVOCACY: 2ND EDITION OUT NOW!
The books have arrived from the printers, complete with new layout and a new cover!
Watch our official unpacking video, "The Arrival".
See how the new cover was made, in this post by the designers.
CAN WE PLAY HIDE AND SEEK IN THE PANOPTICON?
Part 3 of our Snowden-inspired blog series on myshadow.org challenges the notion that mass surveillance allows individuals to “hide within the crowd". Part 4, "Lies and Revelations" looks at why mass surveillance is not about catching the "bad guys".
DIFFICULT QUESTIONS
(Image: Ali Ferzat)
It is unusual for Tactical Tech to comment on a current political event; however, the attack on the artists and journalists working for the French magazine Charlie Hebdo has particular significance for our work. Some initial thoughts here.
WHAT'S UP WITH CRYPTO IN WHATSAPP?
"Enabling encryption in communication services doesn't change this business model nor does it necessarily protect all of your data. So what does end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp mean?" Find out more on MyShadow.
ADDRESSING THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN 2015
Tactical Tech's Becky Kazansky looks at privacy enhancing technologies and human rights in the Internet Policy Review journal on internet regulation.
INDIAN GOVT CENSORSHIP: THE TECH LOWDOWN
Tactical Tech's Kaustubh Srikanth investigates how the Indian Govt has been blocking websites, and what can be done do to get around it. (Huffington Post)
GENDER AND TECH POP-UP INSTITUTE
CREATIVE COMMONS FILM FESTIVAL, MADRID
Our Exposing the Invisible film series will be closing the Creative Commons film festival in Madrid on Feb 01. Director Marek Tuszynski will be there too!
ART REVIEW: "BEAUTIFUL EVIDENCE, PRETTY LIES"
Our director Stephanie Hankey talked visualisation for advocacy with Art Review (vol 66 no 9), alongside designer and theorist Mushon Zer-Aviv and 'Beautiful Evidence' author Edward Tufte. Read the piece in the print edition.
MORE ABOUT TRACKOGRAPHY
Read more about the project in Netzpolitik (in German), Annedotica Magazine, and Tech the Future.
BERLIN, CENTRE OF DIGITAL DISSIDENCE
A new article about Berlin as a centre for alternative digital activity is out, this time in "D", the weekend magazine of Italian newspaper La Republica. (17.01.2015, print edition)
CULTUREHACKER'S 40 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2014
DIGITAL SECURITY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS DEFENDERS
Read more about our guide for environmental rights defenders in sub-Saharan Africa (Land Coalition blog).
PUSSY RIOT RECOGNISED FOR ACTIVISM
Pussy Riot were awarded the Hannah Arendt prize for political thinking, for activism on behalf of prisoners. (Deutsche Welle)
IF YOU COULD SEND AN ANONYMOUS MESSAGE TO THE NSA...
Image: Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud, Can You Hear Me, 2014.
....What would you say? A mesh network installation in Berlin makes this a real question.
DEEP LAB
Deep Lab member Ingrid Burrington. Screenshot: Deep Lab.
An all-women hacker collective is making art about the Post-Snowden Age.
PIRATE SHOWS POLITICIANS WHAT SURVEILLANCE LOOKS LIKE
A member of the Swedish Pirate Party set up an open Wi-Fi network at the Society and Defence National Conference, collecting and analyzing the metadata of those who connected to it.
IT'S ABOUT CONSENT
"Someone stole naked pictures of me. This is what I did about it". Danish journalist Emma Holten in The Guardian.
ON CHARLIE HEBDO AND SATIRE
"What the Charlie Hebdo attacks reveal about our thorny relationship with Satire" (Salon)
"The Limits of Satire", by Tim Parks (New York Review of Books)
"Unmournable bodies", by Teju Cole (New Yorker)
NEW SNOWDEN REVELATIONS
The digital arms race: NSA preps America for future battle (der Spiegel)
GCHQ captured emails of journalists from top international media (The Guardian)
FACING THE CHALLENGE OF ONLINE HARASSMENT
"Online harassment is a digital rights issue. At its worst, it causes real and lasting harms to its targets, a fact that must be central to any discussion of harassment." (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Also read: "Twitter's policies explicitly ban violent harassment. But it ignores vile rape and death threats. What gives?" (Salon)
WHATS WRONG WITH THE UK'S SURVEILLANCE PROPOSALS
"What David Cameron just proposed would endanger every Briton and destroy the IT industry" (Cory Doctorow, Boingboing)
POLICE BUST RANDOM DARKNET SHOPPER STASH
Image: Mediengruppe Bitnik
"It turns out the police are just as happy to seize algorithmically-bought drugs, too." (Vice)
YOU ARE WHAT YOU GOOGLE SEARCH
"No matter how tightly you hold your secrets, Google probably knows." (Washington Post)
Also read: How Google knows what you want to know (Medium.com)
THE IMPLICATIONS OF FACEBOOK'S NEW SEARCH FUNCTION
EMAIL ENCRYPTION: 2014 IN REVIEW
LIFE IN THE ALGORITHM
Algorithms: "Those strange numerical gods who decide whether or not you’re a terrorist and what kids’ toy is going to set the market on fire this Christmas. But what are they, where did they come from and how did they get so powerful? " (Adbusters magazine)
THE REFUGEE PROJECT
(Screenshot: the refugee project)
Interactive map of refugee migrations around the world in each year since 1975.
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To celebrate the arrival of the second edition of Visualising Information for Advocacy we have prepared an unpacking video that we've called "The Arrival".
See how the new cover was made, in this post by the cover designers, La Loma.
Read the book online or order it here.
The attack on the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo has particular significance for our work, and raises old and new troubling questions.
Have a look at our new project, Trackography: You Never Read Alone
Catch up on our latest news as well as a round-up of interesting things we've been reading lately.
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