[liberationtech] Revised Liberationtech Mailing List Guidelines

[Yosem Companys]

Hi All,

We have revised the Liberationtech mailing list guidelines to restrict the
sending of attachments to avoid viruses and spyware (#6 below).

A big thanks to Brian Conley and Nathan of Guardian Project for helping
compose the text.

Best,

Yosem



*****

Moderation Guidelines:

We've had an influx of super-interesting people join the Liberationtech
mailing list.  That would be... YOU!!!  We are up to 1,500 members and
counting.  You're an amazing bunch of researchers, practitioners, and
journalists.  You all have a passion for and an interest in how research
and design of information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be used
to promote democracy, human rights, development, governance, and other
social goods (for more, please see:
http://liberationtechnology.stanford.edu/docs/about_libtech/).
 Liberationtech is focused on fostering discussion and exchanging
information about how we can best achieve these ends. Sticking to this
focus will make the list useful to all.

A few reminders on how to use this list:

1. Liberationtech is YOUR list.  Use it to ask advice on strategic or
technical questions, offer advice on questions raised, share interesting
resources or articles, or post jobs, internships, grant announcements,
CFPs, or RFPs.  Any member of the group can post to the list.  So if you
have anything interesting to share, a question you are puzzling over, or
something you learned in your work, please feel free to draw on the
community!

2. Liberationtech is NOT a list for selling, marketing, or advertising
products (or services), so please refrain from doing so.  Product questions
and reviews are fine.  Hard sells are not.

3. Please keep discussions constructive and civil.  All topics, in so far
as they relate to Liberationtech as defined above, are fine.  Be aware,
however, that there are people from many different countries and cultures
on this list, so please be considerate of these cultural and national
differences when you contribute.  We have a zero-tolerance policy for
anyone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages to our
community.

4. And a few obvious things: Remember to use a good subject line when you
post; keep "me too" messages to a minimum; if you read this list via a
digest, delete extraneous messages when responding and explain (or avoid)
technical terms or industry-specific jargon so that everyone can understand
what you mean.

5.  The Liberationtech mailing list archives are private to the extent that
only list members can access these archives.  But please keep in mind that
anyone who requests to sign up as a list member is accepted.  As with any
other mailing list, please note that we cannot guarantee that members won't
forward information without our knowledge.  As an institution, however, we
don't forward any information you post without your consent except for
publicly-available links to resources, articles, events, jobs, internships,
grants, CFPs, and RFPs, which we may from time to time send without
attribution via Twitter or Facebook.

6. Please don't send attachments to the Liberationtech mailing list. Online
activists, and certainly Liberationtech list members are likely targets of
internet attacks, such as viruses and spyware. One of the most common way
of these attacks are through email sent pretending to be from someone it’s
not really from, or that looks identical to a real email you’ve seen but
has a virus in the attachment. Remember that all these emails will look and
sound genuine. Opening these attachments received through your inbox is
similar to inviting a spy into your computer.  At downloading and opening
these attachment files on your computer, you let the spy:

a) Steal documents and information from your system
b) Start the camera to watch around you
c) Start the microphone to listen to you
d) ...and many more

Liberationtech recommends, if you don’t recognize the sender or the email
address, don’t confirm by replying to that email with attachment.  See
https://tibetaction.net/detach-from-attachments/ for more information about
why you should refrain from sending or opening attachments from senders you
don't know.  If you are expecting an email with attachment from someone,
make sure to confirm or reconfirm before downloading. It’s always better to
confirm through text message or phone call for people you know.  The best
thing to do when receiving an attachment with your email is to IGNORE IT.
Start getting used to not only NOT OPENING ATTACHMENTS, but also NOT
SENDING ONE. Any sharing that needs to be done can use public Google Docs
or Dropbox links.

More generally, please take the necessary security and privacy precautions
such as using pseudonyms, fake email addresses, https, and anonymizer
software especially if you intend to discuss items of a sensitive nature.
 Two particularly robust applications are
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere & https://www.torproject.org/.
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