Archive by year: 2013

Campaign Training – Sunday, Jan 5th, 1pm

December 31, 2013

Nomination papers for the 2014 state & federal elections will be available in February, so now is the time to get prepared! Come learn about running campaigns and being a candidate from two-time candidate for Massachusetts Treasurer, James O'Keefe. What: Training for people interested in helping with campaigns or being candidates When: This Sunday, Jan 5th, 1pm-4pm Where: encuentro 5 (e5), 9 Hamilton Place, Suite 2A, Boston, near Park St. MBTA stop (Directions) Cost: FREE Topics incl...
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cjd on Project Meshnet ( Monday 11AM Hall E #youbroketheinternet @ #30c3 )

December 29, 2013

cjd on Project Meshnet ( Monday 11AM Hall E #youbroketheinternet @ #30c3 ) Contributed by Igel #30c3 is the 30th annual Chaos Communication Congress, a gathering of technologists, big thinkers and popes. The Congress offers lectures and workshops and various events on a multitude of topics including information technology and generally a critical-creative attitude towards technology and the discussion about the effects of technological advances on society. https://events.ccc.de/congress...
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What’s in Your File Part III: My NSA FOIA Request

December 27, 2013

Long before I became a pirate, I had an interest in privacy, security, and digital surveillance, so I was completely floored when the Guardian published a National Security Letter to Verizon, compelling them to turn over phone records for a three-month period. National Security letters (NSLs) are very secretive. You can think of them as subpoenas that come with a gag order -- a party that receives a NSL is forbidden from telling anyone about it -- and very few recipients have managed to ta...
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Pirate Social & Platform Meeting This Sunday

December 20, 2013

This Sunday at 2pm we will have a Pirate social. We meet at the Pizzeria Regina at 353 Cambridge St, Allston in Boston near the MBTA and just off the Mass. Pike. There is a Facebook event. A map is below. We will be discussing our platform for the upcoming election year among other things. We hope you can make it. If you cannot, the next one will be Saturday, January 25th. Same place and time. We have also setup the draft platform at GitHub. You can get a copy from: https://github....
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Three Short Blurbs, Courtesy of the EFF

December 14, 2013

Have you heard of the Electronic Frontier Foundation? If not, you should check them out: they fight patent trolls, they support copyright reform, and they've been vocal opponents of the NSA's surveillance programs. They're good people, and kind of piratey in their own way. At any rate, I was skimming over the EFF's web site this morning, and three articles caught my attention. (1) Awesome Privacy Tools in Android 4.3+. This posting, dated Dec 11th, talked about a cool new feature in Andro...
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The NSA’s Co-Traveler Program: Guilt by Proximity

December 9, 2013

During the last five months, we've learned about a lot of previously-undisclosed NSA surveillance programs. To be perfectly honest, there have been so many that I have a hard time remembering them all. There's been PRISM, X-Keyscore, and Boundless Informant. Stellar wind, Tempora, and BULLRUN . And earlier ones, like BLARNEY, Ragtime, and Pinwhale. A few days ago, the Washington Post added another program to this list: Co-Traveler. In June, we learned that the NSA was vacuuming up massiv...
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Patent Troll Bill goes to Senate

December 5, 2013

The EFF reported that the House of Representatives voted 325-91 in favor of the Innovation Act. Thanks to everyone who told their Congress person to support this bill. As we mentioned yesterday, the Innovation Act would make life harder for patent trolls by: making it easier and cheaper to fight against the trolls in court; requiring trolls to make their cases for infringement publicly and with specifics; protecting end users and consumers when they face suits from patent trolls. ...
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NEW LOCATION: Cryptoparty, Dec. 14th, 1-3pm

December 4, 2013

Pirates Steve and Kendra will hold a cryptoparty with Versus News on Saturday, December 14th from 1pm to 3pm. The main topic will be using PGP keys to encrypt your communications. Steve and Kendra will also explore the encrypted text/audio/video chat software called Jitsi and some of the software tools mentioned at Prism-break.org. It will be hands-on and participants will be encouraged to verify and sign each others keys. New Location: The cryptoparty will be held at Sprouts, 339R Summe...
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Tell Congress: Fight Patent Trolls

December 4, 2013

The House of Representatives will vote on the Innovation Act of 2013 (H.R. 3309) this week. As the EFF notes, this bill will make life harder for the trolls by: making it easier and cheaper to fight against the trolls in court; requiring trolls to make their cases for infringement publicly and with specifics; protecting end users and consumers when they face suits from patent trolls. While he have long viewed patents as barriers to innovation and have called for their elimination, th...
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What’s in Your File: Part II, Acxiom

November 25, 2013

I was listening to the radio the other day, and heard a passing reference to Acxiom. Unless you work in marketing, you've probably never heard of Acxiom; they're a data broker, and one of the bigger ones out there. According to their last annual SEC filing: Acxiom is an enterprise data, analytics and software-as-a-service company. For over 40 years, Acxiom has been an innovator in harnessing the powerful potential of data to strengthen connections between people, businesses and their...
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