[liberationtech] List of Online Risk/Security Resources (was Re: Resignation)

[Katrin Verclas]

Thanks, Joshua - really great to hear that there is a question  
mark :)   Totally agree on bullshit detection - good call.

To shit the convo slightly and add/contribute something useful and ask  
your advice, see below.

Here is a list of guides and resources we compiled on online  
"security"/risk, many from respected sources: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AnlHznBQjUbudGl5azZaQzMyWXVBcEN4QVdsb2tta2c&hl=en&authkey=CIjHsagM

What are we missing? Other pros/cons to note?  Anyone vetted these  
from a tech perspective?  (we have not - just compiled them as a quick  
exercise).

Katrin


On Sep 14, 2010, at 1:17 PM, Joshua Cohen wrote:

> I am one of the directors of the Program on Liberation Technologies,  
> and (now just speaking for myself) wanted to say a word on this  
> (partly echoing themes from Katrin, Daniel, Jake, Evgeny, Jim Youll,  
> and Jane Fountain, among others):
>
> 1. For me, a basic purpose of the Program is to host conversations  
> exactly like the one we have just been having about Haystack. That  
> means that I understand the purpose of the Program as if the name  
> had a question mark:
>
> For me, the name is: Liberation Technologies?
>
> In short, we have a question, not an answer. [Thus share the Katrin/ 
> Evgeny concern about myths and rhetoric.]
>
> 2. I think bullshit detection — aka the discipline of evidence and  
> argument, aka reason — in discussions about IT solutions to  
> important social/political problems has been VERY low (comparable to  
> the minimal levels of bullshit detection in discussions about  
> development assistance, before the Poverty Action Lab). It has been  
> low because lots of people are not in the habit of asking the basic  
> questions:
>
> (a) how do I know? and (even more importantly)
>
> (b) how would I know if I was wrong?
>
> Moreover, people who do ask those questions are often treated (as  
> Jim says) as hurdles to getting things done in a world filled with  
> incredibly urgent problems in which everything needs to have been  
> done yesterday: treated as hurdles, or as irritating skeptics, or as  
> annoyingly impractical academics, not as key players in making  
> things work.
>
> 3. Of course, when people ask hard questions, you end up with lots  
> of uncertainty. And if you can't act with clear purpose while openly  
> acknowledging the uncertainty, you should find something else to do,  
> because you are almost certain to do serious damage.
>
>
> Josh Cohen
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 14, 2010, at 8:46 AM, Katrin Verclas wrote:
>> A lot hinges on the myths and rhetoric around so-called  
>> ''liberation tech" and the collective (and in many ways uniquely  
>> American) techno-fix mythology.  It's more about us than people and  
>> their hopes and fears in Iran, more about American values and  
>> assumptions, and a lot more about the blinders of the players  
>> involved, including as Jillian York put it to me, desperate tech  
>> journalists on the prowl.
>>
>


Katrin Verclas
MobileActive.org
katrin at mobileactive.org

skype/twitter: katrinskaya
(347) 281-7191

A global network of people using mobile technology for social impact
http://mobileactive.org

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