Some thoughts on digital safety and more on activism

Important PS - if you care about your friends and family, do NOT keep all their key personal details (such as name, date of birth, and address) in one location. Have enough love and personal responsibility to spread that out so that, if you are hacked, they are NOT at risk of identity threat and/or other trauma.
If you cannot do that, stop kidding yourself that you love or even care for them.

 

This is one of those posts that I started quite some time ago, and I am jamming it together and out the digital door so me-in-a-future-life can see where I was at 😁 

When I started this post, I had posted a link to a Devon Price article - see https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/06/comments-by-dr-devon-price-on-aspects.html   , and I wanted to provide a few further thoughts, beginning with digital safety. 

 

Now there are good online sources on this topic. One of the best used to be the Rory Peck Trust for independent journalists, but that seems to be behind a paywall now. Nevertheless, the site is well worth a look - see  https://rorypecktrust.org/   (and to get a further idea of their work, also see  https://rorypecktrust.org/news/mental-health-safety-clinic/   and  https://rorypecktrust.org/news/protect-yourself-digital-physical-safety-for-women-journalists/   )  

Other sites I consider good are   https://citizenlab.ca/   and Bruce Schneier   https://www.schneier.com/   

 

As a general principle, stop choosing convenience: 

• don’t have stuff that is permanently logged in on your phone;
  

• consider having more than one phone (which also means you can put all the data gathering apps away from important apps such as banking/health); 

• use Firefox with no scripts on your PC (the private browsing version removes cookies) and DuckDuckGo for searching - especially on your phones; 

• turn your PC off when you’re not using it, and be wary of cross tab piracy; 
  

• if any organisation or app asks for information that is not essential to function, seriously consider saying no and going without;

• in general, go through the tedium of re-entering your password/phrase rather than allowing companies etc to remember your details.
  

I put together some thoughts on passwords/phrases in response to   “Your Passwords Are in Danger: Why You Need a Password Manager Now!”   https://youtu.be/dGwmlwG6lwY   , which was posted in a group I am a member of. I’ve decided not to post those thoughts there, but will do so here: 

The comments in the video had some good suggestions and points.   One issue they missed, though, is that passphrases are better than passwords. 

I consider “passwords” should be at least 20 characters, and preferably based on at least two pass phrases - as well as the standard inclusion of upper & lower case, at least one number and an non-alphanumeric character. (I also use a formula, but I won’t go into that here.)  

As an example of a pass phrase, consider the “every good boy deserves fruit” phrase from music. That could become EgBdF, and then remembering B is the 2nd letter of the alphabet maybe Eg2dF, and add some non-alphanumeric characters to get Eg2dF() - which is still way too short, but shows the idea. 

You could also choose to use one or more of the actual words, with a few changes - e.g. Eg00d2dF()   

To get multiple phrases, maybe one of some interest or significance to you, and another perhaps ... related to the time of the year you last changed your passwords/phrases - e.g., “I like daffodils” (because they were in bloom when you last changed your passwords) could become 1ldFFdls:)   

Eg00d2dF() and 1ldFFdls:) gives you 20 characters.   

If you use a password manager, check whether the password is copied to your clipboard (if your system uses a clipboard) as an intermediate step. If it does, clear your clipboard every time after you use the password manager. Overwriting by copying some nonsensical gibberish used to be good enough, but some systems now keep multiple items on the clipboard (access for Microsoft is the word logo key + V).   

Incidentally, I know people who routinely use 200 random character passwords (and a password manager). That is good, but you still need a good, strong password for your password manager.  

See also   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength   

I also use two factor authentication. 

Now activism.

There was a good article - that I didn’t keep the URL to: sorry -  which was an updated cartoon based guide to protesting (safety, organising), which also emphasised Devon Price’s advice to not get arrested   (see   https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/when-you-live-your-values-every-day   )   because of the increased risks of major harm in this world of high levels of surveillance. 

Other guides on safety which are worth considering are:

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-protest-safely-gear-tips/   

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-protest-safely-surveillance-digital-privacy/   

https://commonslibrary.org/legal-guides-for-activists-about-protests/  

Taking part in nonviolent street marches etc is something that everyone is suited to. Some key points from the Devon price article at   https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/burning-it-all-down-without-burning   

tell others you have limited capacity;  

push for accessible meetings - with good tabulation of advice - and tell organisers when their systems aren’t working, and avoid socialising when you’re becoming overwhelmed;  

that post includes an excellent table of change-making-character-classes;    

build community; and

rest and recuperate when necessary - let others carry work forward.

That advice is all based on being in relatively free nations - such as the USA, UK, and Australia, which don’t involve the risks of being disappeared, tortured, etc that can occur in some nations. 

A major challenge in severely oppressive states is staying safe - and motivated. I haven’t lived in anything like the former USSR / Putin’s Russia / Trump’s USA, and visits to nations which are classified as “not free” for work have been for limited periods of time (although being surrounded by gaggle of undercover cops on my first trip to China while they tried to get me to admit to knowing activists was ... interesting - and my colleague was very pissed off).

I’m not going to try to provide advice for that situation. Rather, I will refer you to “Blueprint for Revolution: how to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other non-violent techniques to galvanise communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world”   by Srdja Popovic and Matthew Miller (pub. Scribe; Feb. 2015, ISBN 9781925113587, Scribe, Amazon, Penguin Random House, Apple Books), and the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS).

 

As a final note, at the local Stonewall event a few weeks ago I found out the origins of pinkwashing: see   https://socialism.com/fso-article/queer-and-feminist-palestinian-leadership-defies-pinkwashing-and-resists-the-occupation/   

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post.  

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below. 

Note that, as with my main blog [see here], I am cutting back on aspects of my posts.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/