[liberationtech] Designing the best network infrastructure for a Human Rights NGO

[David Conrad]

Hi,

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 10:00 AM, <anonymous2013 at nym.hush.com> wrote:
> Thanks I appreciate the input but this is where one of the problems
> with the LibTech approach lies, having spent years training
> hundreds of people all over the world with TrueCrypt, TOR,
> PGP/Thunderbird etc I can tell you that the systems are simply not
> user friendly enough for the vast majority of non-techie people in
> an NGO environment. In parts of Africa and other places, people are
> barely techno-literate to be able to turn on a windows machine -
> even after consideriable training. People now come to work using
> Mac's and Android, they are used to easy interfaces etc...If you
> think you can get a board member or a finance person in an NGO to
> use Linux then you are detached from the reality of how most NGO's
> work. The use will simply ignore it.

I suspect more info about the use case here is necessary to provide useful feedback. I am not sure how folks at the technical level you describe can maintain the disciplines necessary to keep a general purpose system secure. If it takes considerable training for them to turn on a Windows machine, then I would think the model you're looking for is a remotely managed (and wipe-able) appliance/info kiosk with minimal physical exposure and not a general purpose system.

Regardless of whether the OS is Windows or a highly locked down super secure variant of HyperCryptoGeekOS, I suspect the real risks lie in the usage model and physical environment. Without more details on what you're trying to protect against I don't think it possible to propose solutions that are any more than what people think are the latest/best cool toys.

Regards,
-drc