Tactical Technology Collective - Featured

"The Arrival" of Visualising Information for Advocacy 2nd Edition

gabi — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:18:44 +0000

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.

Gender and Tech Pop-up Institute

helen — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:15:59 +0000

Including Gender: New Approaches to Privacy and Security

Organised by Tactical Technology Collective and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), December 2014, Germany.

At the beginning of December last year, 76 women and a small group of men - human rights advocates, feminists, techies, activists - descended on an ageing East German 'Schloss' (manor house) near the border of Poland for seven days of training, collaboration, discussion, and knowledge exchange. (And potatoes! Lots of potatoes.)

As could probably be expected from that description alone, the Gender and Tech Pop-up Institute promised to be an intense, interesting, inspiring week.

But first: Why a gender and tech event?
The problem of online harassment and threats against women and their collaborators, coming from both governments and non-state individuals and groups, has become more visible in the last few years. Vocal women are too often trapped in a situation where the internet is crucial to their work - for coordinating actions, gaining wider reach, etc - but is also the place where they are surveilled, harassed and punished for speaking out.

For women, the internet is not a safe space, and it is all too common to see the work of feminists and activists being deleted, (self)censored, and actively prevented from being seen, heard or read. Logically, these trends diminish both the freedom of expression and privacy rights of the people targeted. Our aim with this event was to try to find new approaches to privacy and digital security that would include a gender and cultural diversity approach.

350 applications
Through a process of rigorous review, 350 applications were pared down to 51 participants coming from a wide range of countries, including Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia Herzegovina and Macedonia, with six self-funded participants from Serbia, Canada, Germany, Sweden and the US.

We also had a great group of 18 facilitators, who came from organisations such as SAFE, Protection International and Donestech (as well as APC and Tactical Tech); add the logistics team and some visitors, and we were about 80 in total.

Tracks, skillshares, hands-on sessions, and a hackerspace
The mornings were mostly organised along two tracks: a Digital Security Training Skills track (for those who already had some tech background but who wanted to hone their training skills), and a Privacy Advocacy track, which looked at issues like mass and targeted surveillance, managing digital shadows and online identities and tackling tech-related violence.

Afternoons were reserved for hands-on sessions (ie, learning specific tools) and skillshares run by participants, including sessions on wikis and digital libraries, self-doxing, interviewing survivors of violence, feminist servers, self care, self-defence, VPNs, regional discussion groups, and others.

Movies, conversation, tech sharing, and making houses out of biscuits
After dinner the evening programme kicked in, including lots of self-organised, participant-driven sessions: movies, discussion groups, stenciling, board games, card games, creating a 'herstory' exhibition, gingerbread-house-making... as well as bar shifts at our makeshift bar 'Gabi's' for the night owls, complete with impromptu dancing and the occasional outbreak of balloon-volleyball.

Evenings were also when the self-organised and popular hackerspace got going, which became the go-to place to gain knowledge and share skills around practical tech stuff in a chilled-out atmosphere.

And because a week is never complete without some loud group singing, on Sunday night we put some fairy-lights around the piano, set up the guitars and speakers and projectors and enjoyed some exclusive one-night-only performances. Top acts included a piano song, a poetry reading, music-less karaoke, various guitar jams (with or without improvised rap), and of course the unforgettable 'Left-Handed-Declaration of Human Lefts'.

And suddenly it was Monday
While everyone was no doubt ready for some rest and quiet by the end of the week, those feelings were mixed with sad goodbyes. From our side, we learned a lot and hope that those of you who were there did too. Big thanks to our collaborators APC and to all our facilitators and to everyone who traveled halfway across the world to join the event; we're excited to see new partnerships emerge.
Thanks also to everyone who applied - the selection process involved some tough decisions. We are, however, currently working on supporting and developing similar, more regional events in other countries, so there will hopefully be more opportunities in future.

Read more
We're working toward releasing an edited version of the event documentation later in the year.

Updates and questions
Sign up to our newsletter In the Loop and follow us @info_activism!

And if you have particular questions or suggestions around this new area of exploration at Tactical Tech, please contact alexandra[at]tacticaltech.org.

Difficult questions at the end of the week

maya — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 16:53:45 +0000

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.

Over the past 12 years Tactical Tech has been dedicated to promoting the genius of beautiful trouble: the artful exposure of the abuses and misuses of power, the charming, devious tactics of irony, and the power of creative and visual expression to truly engage the public in debate. It brings to mind the work of Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat who created dark visual ripostes to those in power, even exchanging his pen for his middle finger after the regime broke his hands for doing so. This raises difficult and troublesome questions. Does the art of debate have to offend to be effective? What are the limits of defending the right to offend? These are things many of us are and have struggled with, and will continue to contemplate in the coming months.

The difficult thing we have to confront now is the reality that this is going to create fresh and newly strengthened arguments for increased digital surveillance and erosions of privacy. It is going to be harder for us, and many we work alongside, to argue convincingly for the right to digital security and privacy. Communities that already face xenophobia and racism will be further marginalised. We're also likely to see an even more segregated and regulated world; many will have to give up fundamental freedoms in exchange for promises of safety and security. In our view this will also put more pressure on our sector.

Many friends and partners who have worked with us have been dedicated to helping protect those who are at risk for engaging in non violent activism. Many of us have lost friends and colleagues, and watched helplessly as friends have been imprisoned; and some of us have directly seen the consequences of what it means to work under such pressure. Through it all, we have believed in – and continue to – the tiny acts of defiance, questioning and bravery, and the creativity and determination that comes with it to make it work.

There are many around the world who use their creativity to resist, remain critical and ask difficult questions that fall outside of popular political and ideological narratives. We take this moment to recognise them and show our respect and thanks.

Who is tracking you when you read the news online?

helen — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 17:26:31 +0000

We've just launched our new project, Trackography, and already we've been happy to see the response it's got. And with the help of others, our list of countries on our map keeps growing!

Watch Tactical Tech's Maria and Claudio launch the project.

Read the official press release below:

New online tool shows how we are tracked when we read the news online

Chaos Communication Congress (31C3), Hamburg, 29 December 2014 - A new online project, titled Trackography (https://trackography.org), offers unprecedented insight into exactly where and through which companies our data travels when we read the news online.

Launched by the Berlin-based Tactical Technology Collective on the occasion of the annual Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, the project currently tracks how over 2,500 media websites in 28 countries share readers' personal data profiles.

“These profiles tell a story about us which may or may not be true,” said Stephanie Hankey, Tactical Tech's executive director, “A profile can include information about our political beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, habits, interests, affiliations and so on. We have very little control over where and with whom this data is shared, how accurate it is and how long it is stored for.”

The Trackography website allows you to pick out your location on a map and then choose a media website (for example spiegel.de). The map then shows you where in the world your data travels when you read articles on that media site.

It also shows which companies are tracking you, and collecting your data, along the way.

Trackography reveals that our data often travels to servers located in other countries. This means that this data falls under the data protection and retention laws of those countries; if any exist.

“Trackography was created to increase transparency about the generally opaque data collection industry, and to provoke a discussion on unseen and unconsented-to data collection,” said Hankey. “Third party trackers can aggregate our data, link it to other data collected about us and subsequently create profiles.”

Trackography: https://trackography.org

About Tactical Tech
Tactical Tech (tacticaltech.org) is a non-profit organisation working since 2003 to advance the use of information and digital technologies by advocates and activists worldwide. Based in Berlin, we work with an international network of partners and collaborators to help rights, accountability and transparency advocates and the communities they work with to use information and digital technologies effectively in their work.

Contact
Please email press[at]tacticaltech.org for press enquiries
OR If your country is not yet on the trackography map and you'd like to help out with media lists or running scripts, email trackmap[at]tacticaltech.org

We're hiring! Administration and Finance Coordinator

helen — Fri, 19 Dec 2014 16:30:58 +0000

We're hiring for the position of Administration and Finance Coordinator.

Go to our JOBS page for details: https://tacticaltech.org/jobs

DECEMBER issue of In the Loop: catch up!

helen — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 11:09:23 +0000

In this month's issue of Tactical Tech's In the Loop:

Highlights from Tactical Tech:

New project, Trackography, to be launched at the Chaos Computer Conference in December

The False Dichotomy of Better and Worse Spies

And some of what we've been reading:

German Village Plays Prank on Neo-Nazis
Sexist Barbie book remixed
Launch of world's first comprehensive archive of oil contracts
"Random Darknet Shopper" - mail art
Peru's deadly environment: what's driving killings of environmental activists in Peru
How sustainable is your smartphone?

and a lot more.... just go have a look (and subscribe to get In the Loop in your inbox every month)

https://tacticaltech.org/in-the-loop

Extracting Equality: a guide

helen — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 13:50:06 +0000

http://issuu.com/pwyp/docs/c4cgender

UN Women and Publish What You Pay (PWYP), a global coalition campaigning for an open extractive sector, launched a toolkit this month designed by Tactical Studios, called Extracting Equality – A Guide.

It examines how to approach the issue of gender within the extractive sector.

Designed and produced by Tactical Studios and written by PWYP and UN Women, the guide is the first-ever extractive value chain to combine gender with good governance.

The toolkit is targeted at those involved in the extractive industries sector: community members, civil society organizations, NGOs, oil, gas and mining companies, as well as governments and UN agencies.

“This gender-focused value chain allows stakeholders to appreciate why natural resource governance must be inclusive,” said Winfred Ngabiirwe, National Coordinator for PWYP Uganda.

“Most importantly, it puts women at the centre of the discussions and uses their knowledge and skills for sustainable development along the entire value chain. Women are no longer to be seen as victims of natural resource extraction, but instead as a strong constituency that shapes the world's natural resource governance and management.”

10 Reasons why the “Nothing to Hide” argument is wrong

helen — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:39:43 +0000

Reason number 5: Our data tells a story about us, which may or may not be true. If your data says that you are a 'terrorist', it's your word against your government's.

For nine more reasons, go to Me and My Shadow: https://myshadow.org/nothing-hide

Digital Shadows: watch our new animation!

helen — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:01:20 +0000

When we use digital technologies, we actively and/or passively leave digital traces. These traces contribute toward our digital shadow. And our digital shadow tells a story about us, which may or may not be true.

How do we leave digital traces? And why should we care?

Read more on our Me and My Shadow website: https://myshadow.org/visualisations/animation

Learning from Schooloscope

helen — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 16:12:39 +0000

"Since I first laid my cursor on Schooloscope.com it intrigued me as an exceptional case in the world of open data and information design. The chain of events that led to the site’s termination is an important story, which I believe should be chronicled and told."

Thanks Mushon Zer-Aviv for the latest guest post on our Visualising Information for Advocacy Blog: Should Schools Be Closed? Learning from Schooloscope, an OpenData post-mortem.