About learning and teaching

And maybe doing it right

So, I happens to have accidentally bootstrapped a sort of collective to "organize" cryptoparties in Paris (See Here). It's quite cool because then, you know, I can skip some of them to actually get some rest when I'm on holiday.

Things works more or less smooth, but I have some issues with the way it looks like now. It's not something easy to say, because it's probably my fault - at least I do have some responsibilities - but we have some attitude issues among some of the co organizers. I hope it's nothing that can't be fixed and we will try to talk about it and see how it evolves.

However, the more I think about it, the more I think we didn't talked enough about what teaching or do training actually is. And what are some responsibilities you have to endorse and accept when going in front of a group of people and try to have then learn new things, be it chemistry, astrophysics, politics or - in this case - cryptography and privacy.

So, as usual, I'm gonna brain dump here. Not sure if it will make sense or if I'm right, but I think people who wanna do some training might think about what it implies for them and for the people they'll train.

Desorganised and non-planned

This how we kept cryptoparties organised around here. Everyone of good will is welcome to helps, there's no skill prerequisite, no resume checking. We all do that on our free time and we try to remain between friends, so it implies a lot of parties (the Telecomix way of doing things) and sometime some harsh talk on a mailing list. But it's how I like it.

I started those workshops at le Loop, because I wanted to explore technology I did not understand completely at that time, and I prefer doing that in group. The fact that it became a sort of institution is an accident and was never planned.

So, when we throw up a new cryptoparty, we follow the Chaos workshop Howto and we mostly tries to know who will be there and who can train on what topic, then ask the question to the people who have gathered here "What do you wanna explore?"

And it was far from perfect, but at least it worked for a while. But now, we have some issues. Those issues are basically because we never talked between us of what knowledge transmission implies.

Cognitive biases ans Argument of authorities

First thing to acknowledge is that, when you put yourself in a trainer position, you have an immense power. You are the expert, the authority, the person who knows, and what you will say will be accepted like The Truth (with capital letters) by your audience.

It means that you need to be extra cautious regarding this power, because - has Peter Parker states it - with great power there is also great responsibility. Not to be exhaustive, or to be flawless, but to be as much flawless as you can toward the knowledge you're trying to transmit.

Especially in the case where you train activists. Those people basically will use this knowledge in life or death situations and you must do everything you can to avoid them having wrong ideas about what they're doing.

This is YOUR responsibility. You must know what you know and what you do not, you must accept that you can't know everything and says when you can't find an answer to a question (and note it and then look later for the answer). You can't be good enough or approximative. You must be excellent. If you can't, you should not do this training.

And yes you have internet to help you. When you don't know, do not hesitate to fire up a web browser and search for the answer. That way, the people you're training will learn how they can get better at understanding things. In the crypoparty context that's also why I like doing them in pair. One can correct the other or helps when difficulties arises, and everyone is getting better at doing it.

That's also why when I want to explore a new tool, I say upfront that I do not now how it works, but I want to find out how it works. And we dig deeper and deeper, while exploring.

That's also why I do not teach the math behind cryptography, because I do not understand them fully (and that's also why I'm not writing crypto code), so it's hard for me to explain how they works besides rough generalities.

But - and that's the important part - few people will question you. After all, you're the person who have the knowledge, and they crave for it, they want it. So, it's YOUR job to make sure that you won't teach them errors.

Inclusiveness and accessibility

This part is more directed toward cryptoparties. It's already a hard place for people to come to a cryptoparty, the name is scary - and that's why we brand them Café Vie Privée or Privacy Café here - so we need to be the more polite, accessible and inclusive as possible.

It means that you should avoid to patronize people and accept their questions, and weirdness. It also means that when you have to pick up examples, analogies, and things like that, you really should avoid stereotypes because it only creates more stereotypes.

That's also why you shouldn't do level oriented groups. Or use terms like n00bs. It's exclusive, it confront people to their lack of knowledge in a specific area (while they can probably teach you a lot of things from their experience).

The fact that our cryptoparties here are mostly ran by white cis-male is already a big issue. If you use sexist example or assume that people - because they're female - are the ones who do not know a thing about crypto, you will have an issue.

And it's not even because you're an asshole. It's still because you have the authority, and it have some powerful side-effects. If you tell to people that they're fantastic and that they're making progress, that it doesn't matter if they fail now, etc., then they'll be amazing. On the other end, if you think of them as n00bs and lamers who sucks at understanding basic tech because you knew it all before, then they'll stay that way.

So always think of inclusion of everyone. Including the weirdest people you'll see. Or the one you're not comfortable with. You don't have a choice, if you want to share your knowledge, you should share it with the biggest number possible of entities, and then you shouldn't assume anything about their lives.

Stay humble

And that leads to our last part. Stay humble. You might know a lot of things about the topic you're about to talk, or you wouldn't or shouldn't do it. But all the other people around you - including the co organisers - are also more or less expert on some topics, sometime even the topic you're going to teach.

And you'll always be in a de-facto authority, so do not brag about all the things you did. You do not need to justify yourself, if people came they already trust you to be good at what you're going to train them. You do not need to confront them to their lack of knowledge.

And if you're doing it with a collective - which is best, parties are better when there's more than one person partying - you need to work with the collectives. Different people have different views on the same topic, that's why it's interesting to work with them. They will also helps you when' you're in difficulty, or helps you getting things together when your world will inevitably fall apart.

And it's important in such a collective to not have to big of an ego, to accept to step back. Yes, you can promote your own projects because they're cool, they can help people and the like. But you have to accept that, sometimes, someone else want to speak, or try to do things a different way, because we're all learning how to transmit knowledge, and sometimes we need to experiment.

So yeah, you should listen at your co-organisers. But you must also listen at your trainees. They have questions and problematics you can't anticipate. And since you're not doing a lecture, you need to interact, to accept their view, to try to get in their shoes, because there's a reason for that question you judge stupid.

Also, you need to transmit all the keys you may have to knowledge. It means that you, for instance, when you're demonstrating a new crypto-tool you like, you should explain what each available options are and what are the differences, but also why you recommend using this specific set of options. You have a reason for doing so, so explain it.

And be patient. I mean, I'm doing help desk for a living (or well, part of my job is doing help desk) I can assure you that most of the people who will voluntarily come to one training are willing to learn. But they need to understand things, and sometimes you will need to answer the same questions many times. It means you need to rephrase until the trainee understand. And yes it's exhausting. But it's nothing like help desk, so be patient.

Conclusion?

So yes, if you want to train people, you have responsibility toward them. You must think about that, you're basically messing with their lives. It's easy to scare them, and have them run away, but that's not your job. Your job is to give them enough keys and support for them to walk then run then do a back-flip.

And it needs some prerequisite. Be humble. Know where your knowledge stop. Be inclusive. If you're not, and if it happens when I'm around, I will probably rush into you and slaps you around with a big trout.

Training is a serious matter. It can be done in fun ways, but it must be done in a way that will manage trainees to be trained (and, one day, they'll became trainers too, which is an excellent things and helps you stepping back from everything).

Disclaimer: I'm in no way a sociologist, those are the state of thoughts in my brain as of now, it will probably change later. And yes, it's the result of different conversation I had online recently

Identity crisis

Identity and surveillance

There's something going on in my head for a while, it's that I have hard time thinking why mass surveillance is inherently bad. I agree with that, but I try to understand why. Because, as Quinn Norton and Eleanor Saitta said it in their 30C3's talk 'No neutral ground in a burning world', the surveillance is not necessarily bad.

If we want mutual care and mutual aid to work - and really, I think it's mandatory in the world I want to live in - then we need surveillance. To keep tabs on each other just to know if they're OK, or if they need something.

So, the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the bad thing with surveillance is not the massive amount of data collected. It's the link made between those data and entities - human being, devices, whatever. And that is, I think, what we call identity.

Some might argue that identity is what you are, but I tend to think it's more than that. Identity is the projection of yourself in a social context, and the your identity is not the same from the state perspective or from your friends one.

Embodiment and identity

An identity is an interface between your self and other selves. It can be a login on a computer system, a social security number, or any other features. The Guy Fawkes mask is one of them for instance, as well as a lots of memes - but more on that later - and this interface is what we usually call a body.

A body (including the way it is dressed) is, in the meatspace, how people will identify me. My friends recognize me because of my body (and not because I give them my social security number). But in this networked world, you're body has been augmented.

Your socials networks (Facebook profile, twitter stream, G+ account, whatever) is just that. A big pile of data that became your unique body on those networks. Same goes for the medical system, your personal medical record is your body in there - and yes it include description of your flesh and blood body.

And, for what it matters, the state, by giving you ID papers and forcing you to have them with you at all time, including biometrics to check that you're really the good version of you (yes, a picture is a biometric identification system) gave you an identity.

And this is where it starts to suck big time. Whatever we wanna do today, you're asked for a proof - a link - of identity. More and more content you check online require you to be authenticated using one identity or another, and since everything is logged, it's added to your identity and to your body without your consent or your knowledge.

And every time you're forced to use an identity (to get money from your bank account, to prove your ID to a cop, to watch that porn), you're forced into a body. And that's why registration sucks. Each time you have to login or decline an identity somewhere, you have to endorse a body on which you have less and less control.

As the feminist says: "My body, my rules." It should apply on all forms of body, including the ones made of data.

Symbolism and memes

Symbol

Before going further, I need to define what a symbol - or an icon - is. I'm not a specialist in symbolism or else, but still. Symbols are ides compression system. When you see one of them, you instantly access to a lot of ideas and concepts linked to it - of course those ideas will depend on your past and on the events you've gone through - and that's why symbols can be extremely powerful. They are to ideas and memes what gzip is to text, a fast way to deliver memes.

And occult enthusiast loves the symbols because their meaning depends on your cultural background. Take the svastika for instance. If you've got an hinduist or buddhist background, a north-westernenr one or if you're a raëlian, it does not deserve the same message. And occultists loves the hidden meaning of symbols, after all occultism is all about the hidden meaning. What's the hidden meaning of this bird fly, of those tea leafs, or any other stupid sign they try to interpret and give meaning to.

Symbol and bodies

Adding symbols to your body is, usually, a good way to tell a lot of things to the entities interacting with you. Wearing those buttons of the CCC or EFF basically explain to those who have the cultural background that I support them.

The hidden meaning of symbols and the fact that they're senseless is also extremely interesting. That's how antisocial and oppressed groups identify themselves. Christian during the early age of roman empire, used to use fish as a way to identify themselves. Nowadays fascists wear some specific clothes, or use some symbols (like the celtic cross) to be able to identify themselves but not being flagged as a fascist (while having a nazi cross tattooed on their forehead will makes us identify them as nazi).

So tattoos, clothes, buttons, avatars, quotes, and all those memetic shortcuts you wear on your body do tell to people what you claims to be or think. And that's why we spend some time to think about how we look, that's because those symbols will unzip themselves in people thoughts when they'll meet us. Your body - and then your identity - tells a lot to the people you interact with. And that's why it's important for you to get in control of your body.

I mean, you wouldn't allow somehow to tattoo that nazi cross on your forehead. So, you shouldn't let a government or a corporation labels you as, for instance, a radical lefty or a LGBTIQ militant if you do not want it.

However, some symbols have became so powerful tat they now have entire identities attached to them. Take the Guy Fawkes mask. Seeing one makes you think Anonymous (and can recall V for Vendetta) and Anonymous is an identity. It's a body you can wear at any given time it's even its purpose.

Uniforms

And yes, there's a lot of these kind of body you can wear to represent specific ideas. You reject your identity to embrace one another. For instance the UPS delivery guy is not someone specific. He is UPS. While wearing this brown body, driving this brow truck, he become UPS and all that this represent or can represent.

Wearing a uniform denies your identity and makes yourself part of another body. That's why cops and soldier have them. To identify themselves, for us to identify them as the function they serves (and not as specific individuals), and to differentiate from their enemies.

That's also why anarchists and others tend to have a uniform (hell, black flag is a strong symbol, and nowadays most of them wears black hoodies and scarf to hide their faces) it allow them to abandon their identities and to wear another one.

Wearing a symbol or a uniform also makes you part of a community. I mean, the Apple is a sign of belonging to the Apple values (elitism, lack of control, wealth, coolness) as well as wearing a latin cross will give you the feeling to belong to the christianity, or wearing those branded shoes will makes you part of a community. Or makes you think you are.

But mostly, uniforms are a form of abandoning your identity to merge yourself in a crowd of more or less likely minded people. That's why I tend to think they can be dangerous. When you start having people all wearing the same symbols with or without understanding all the implication a symbol might have - not everyone have the same cultural background - you start to have a uniform appearing.

And wearing a uniform is abandoning your identity to became another.

The link with surveillance?

So, you have your body. Some part you control, some you don't (basically everything that's in the cloud - which is a technical term meaning I don't give a shit about what happens to those data).

The ones you control is not the problem here. The problem here is the one you don't control anymore. Different entities are associating ideas, tags, identification mark all over your body - think tattoo here - for different kind of purposes. To tailor some services, advertisement or - as the event in Kiev show us - to classify you as a dissident.

You have no control on that. Those organisms use those (meta)data to build an identity and to link it to your others identities. And if you control the identity - hence the body - you control the people.

You make them wear a uniform they don't even know about, or understand. You transform them from individuals to part of something else they have to conform to, because wearer of uniforms do not disobey or they're stripped of it. And since it's cool to wear it, you do not want to lose it.

And yes, this identity imply that you'll comply with what it means. From the state point of view, building identities allow them to sort between good and bad citizens. And to expose the bad ones as bad citizens and you don't want to be the bad guy - except for the sociopath.

So, you'll do everything you can to conform. To obey. To stay in it, to deserve your uniform of good citizenship. And then to abandon your self for the one you're told to wear. And that's where mass surveillance sucks. It's not about the amount of data collected which can be useful (asks an epidemiologist to work without data collected on the whole earth for instance). It's not even about surveillance (knowing a disaster is happening and reacting to it is, generally, a good thing). It's the identity building that sucks.

Enforced identity is quite new as a concept in the human history. And each time a state have provided citizens with ID-card, it was for controlling them (yeah, in France we have them since the Vichy government), not for making their life easier.

And in that connected era, states aren't the only on to gather data and to attributes ID. Twitter nickname, Google and Facebook ID, all of them are more and more used to connect to other services. And yeah, it means they want to have control over you. And for you to wear the identity they've chosen for you.

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Project Chaos Part 1

Intro

This article will be the first one of an ongoing story, I'll try to document my journey on this project through posts, probably shorter than the usual ones.

So, I've got this group or tabletop role player that I know for 15 years through different instanciation of the same internet community. It's the group of people I know for the longest time (for almost half of my life until now) and as all online community it's shaped by the tools we use (and the tools we use are shaped by our community).

There were the bulletin board like forums (phpBB then fluxBB), both of them managed by the techies (not me) and a third iteration based on drupal. And facebook. Because before 2007 we used the bulletin board forums as a way to keep in touch, to plan parties or to help each other.

Since the facebook happens, the forum mostly turned to be a game-lore database, all the social thing slowly moved over there. And then the forum started to slowly die.

Also, Shadowrun, the game we used to play, gone through some editorial crisis, the new edition has been heavily criticized and some personal dramas did technically killed this forum and group of friends.

They're still in touch through Facebook, Google cloud sharing services and stuff like that. But since I won't get there I've been a little bit ostracized (not that I really mind, I love my loneliness) but this community was not a community anymore. We ended up with half a dozen of people doing all the community services, while all the others are just feasting on it.

Typical of communities of that age I think. Some of us moved far away, other are having babies, but still, internet tools were supposed to help us to stay in touch.

For the last two years, we did however launch a lot of meetups in different places. And I fighted the uses of google docs to the profit of free alternatives such as etherpad and ethercalc (more than enough for our use case of writing down recipes and errands to run to feed 30 people) with some success.

And then came the sharing. We're sharing a lot of music and playlists. Especially when you want to run a game, you're always looking for some atmosphere, so we talk a lot about music (I mean, a 6hours long game is 6 hour of music non stop, you need to find some). The thing is, they want some of my music and, since I won't use spotify nor google, we're stuc with sneakernet. Reminds me high school where we exchanged tapes, but with USB hard drive of more than one terabyte.

So, they wanted to share, including what politicians would call illegal files. And, in what sounds like a surprise - but interesting - move, they want to do it themselves (OK, they want me to get involved and helps them) but they want to self-host their stuff.

10 years of advocating free software. 5 of advocating for getting out of social centralized web. 2 after setting up a social network for our characters. 1 after showed them how powerful free and decentralized software can be, they asked me to helps them build a community sharing server.

At last.

Next step

So, we're currently writing down what we want and need, using etherpad and calcs. There will be a lot of learning implied, and some code to write. But at least, we're going to do it together.

And yes, they actually asked me to show them how to administrate a server, even if it implies running a shell.

So this will be my log for this journey. I hope we'll reach the destination. Theres adventures to come, but I have faith in their motivation.

Fuck the new year

Yeah, it sucks already. I mean, if you've even remotely followed 2013 you must now that the wold is burning. And that we all have been fucked by things that calls themselves governement or securities agencies.

And guess what, we do not have any idea about what they're up to. Most - if all - the secret projetc of the NSA revealed by Snowde (yeah, including the 1kW electromagnetic canon that even Philip K. Dick didn't dream of) are from the past. All the dates are from before 2008.

2008 was the rises of social networks such Facebook or twitter. Even if they already were included in PRISM, they didn't had the place they have now in our lives. And we don't now what the NSA and their colleagues are technically capable of.

So yeah, you're now quite pissed of about them. And you want to destroy surveillance. Because, you know, surveillance sucks. Except it's not that simple. As @quinnorton and @Dymaxion pointed it out in their talk at 30C3 - one of the most important talk of the event I think more important than all the fear monguering around NSA -

Because the issue is not about surveillance. Surveillance can be helpful, either for rescue mission, for improving infrastructure - because yeah, most/all of sysadmins are doing surveillance over thentwork you use to maintain it, detect bottlenecks, etc - or just to maintain a social structures such as mutual aid and mutual care systems.

The issue with (NSA|GCHQ|FRA|DGSE|[A-Z]{3-6}) is not that they do monitoring of everyone. It's they link that to an identity they choose to create. Not one you're in control of, but one they decide you should fit in. And then the state will act uppon you based on this identity, not on what you are. This is were the dystopian part is.

Nation and Corportaion states needs a handle to interact with you, and instead of letting you free to define it, change it and have more than one, they label you with a unique number, biometrics, and then they add information to that until they think they know who you are (probably a dangerous pedonazi from the tubes - because you're one). This is the problem.

It's the same issue with the centralisatin of all your social interactions in one place. The control loss of your identity which is used by states and people to interact with you. And that's what you shoudl take control over.

Yes, but how do I do that?

First, you do the only thing they do not want you to do. You reach out to the internet, you connect yourself to this amazing and wonderfull tool to enhance yourself, to meet people and bots, to organize a dissent.

Yes, they will know about it. But you know what? It doesn't matter that much. I mean, is everyone is organising they can't control us. If you takes new identities, it will makes their task harder. If you encrypt all your communication, it will makes their task harder. If you ouke all over them by just not caring, it will makes their task useless.

So, get on the net, and organize. And then get down to the streets to fight for your freedoms. Not to meet in assembly - this is what internet is for, besides porn - just t protest, to express your anger of the state, and to tear them down to pieces.

Yes, it's not easy. It won't be easy, and you'll probably never see the end of it. You're gonna discover new stages of exhaustion. You're gonna experiment new forms of frustration when trying to explains things to other people. You're gonna learn new forms of pains when you'll be crushed down. But you'll gonna learn new form of strongness when you'll get back up on your feet. You're gonna feel new form of joy when you'll spread chaos into the tighty little life of a governement. You're gonna develop new forms of relationship when you'll fall back to friends.

This is what's coming. We should stop the all "revelation" stuff and start destroying this scary world to build a new one. I want people to use the internet to improve themselves, not to enslave themselves. I want a mutual-aid and support system propelled by cats and unicorns througout the world and to space. I want people to be able to get ack their identities and to define themselves the way they want.

This is all I can wish you for the next years to come. There will be a lot of pain before that, but you'll have a different world to live in. And you have the tools and power to do it.

It will be an interesting year. With a lot of intersting people doing interesting things.

Happy fucking life people.

Context

Yesterday, the National Assembly in France voted the LPM (Loi de Programmation Militaire - Military Planning Law) and a lot of the so called civil society was upset about the Article 13 that may (or may not, we can't know given the way the text is redacted) legalise what has been illegal for the state until now: wide collection of data and communication in a state without a judge intervention if it's for the defense of the state.

And I really think that civil society is now dead in France. And I'm saying that while working for a NGO - FIDH (Human Rights International Federation) - and after helps LQDN fighting ACTA, HADOPI and all this stuff.

I just think that the 13th article of this law is just a diversion, a bone throw to the civil society to fight against and to enable the government to do worst at the same time.

Don't touch my porn

Everyone, including me, is fully aware that each attempt to control and censor the internet (even if it's stupid) is dangerous because it deprives you of your liberty to … to do what? To consume moar advertisement push to us by private companies.

We're not using this fantastic tool to build a new society, to change the old one, to organise protest like it's the case almost everywhere in the world (Tunisia, Egypt, SYria, Ukrain, Greece, Brazil, I mean, look at the news: world is in flame). We're using it to watch porn and to stalk our neighbour.

So, yes, you will fight for your right to watch porn. That's OK, I mean, I can't blame you for wanting to watch porn. But you will defend only that. When people are in the streets fighting for the «internet», they're not asking for freedom of organisation, communication and privacy. They just want to watch movies they do not want to pay for (because the movies are so lame nowadays that anyone should pay for that, I agree) or to watch their neighbor having sex at a party.

And now, the civil society is just raging against each attempt to censor the big ternet. Except it's mostly fighting on that. We were already lured in the past, when opposing DADVSI while anti terrorism law were passed. Twice.

The issue is that organisation (and non organisation) such as LQDN might be great to get people calling parliamentarians in the French national assembly or in the Euopean parliament (after all, ACTA was defeated), but they're not good at explaining to the people why those laws suck.

The thing is that now, we have in each and every law (about planning of military operation, prostitution, gambling, copyright fraud, criminalisation of hate speech, etc.) an article about Internet and censorship/controls.

The thing is that now, we're fighting only on this point. Us, the citizen, at least the one who are occupying the mediasphere and the social space, are only focused on internet, and nowhere else.

It means that it's easy for the governement to pass a new security law. It ust have to add a censor-the-internet-article-we-do-not(really-want-in-fact and just wait for the civil society to go after this specific piece of article that the governement is willing to abandon anyway.

It will give civil society the feeling that they're usefull, while validating that this way of governance works.

Well, you know what?

G

O

F

U

C

K

Y

O

U

R

S

E

L

F

!

It's a lie.

It does not works. A society which is OK with mass surveillance (whereas using cameras for CCTV, advertisement display with eye-tracking and face recognition system, invasive social networks and other facial recognition system branded as cool) is not a democracy.

Wake up!

It's time to stop believing that the orderly and controlled protests, petitions and yelling at people works. It doesn't, the current politician cast is gaming us and this system.

We need to teach, to provide as many explanation as necessary, to fight the fear and to help everyone to have a better understanding of what internet actually is, what it's not and why it's the best and most beautiful thing humanity ever created (yet). And we can't do that by using the traditional way of expression.

We must stop trying to convince politician and start more powerful grassroot and decentralized movement. We must build that alternative society everyone is dreaming of. We must stop thinking that politicians and corporations will ever hear the people, because it won't happen as long as they think they're safe. We must challenge them and threatens their safety.

We must not abandon our rights, among them the right to have a private life and to protect it from interference according to the Article 12 of the UDHR, but it's a bit late.

I mean, 2001 is the first anti-terrorist law (LSQ). We since had a lot of them. And each time, there's only the internaut - or, well, the one who enjoy their porn - to fight them.

It was twelve years ago. And we still have all of them. No one is publicly asking for the abrogation of those laws. Instead of that we're just reacting, we're playing a defense game in which we can only lose something (a small piece of liberty or a bigger one), we need to take the initiative now.

How many loss of liberties should we endure before someone will actually move? I think that we just quit the fight. I think that we think about what we can lose if we start getting angry, and that's why we're hearing a lot about what's happening in Greece. Our so-called leaders are using Greece as a bogeyman to scare us and keep us at peace like, you know, saying "You shouldn't ask to much or you could loose evrything". The problem here is not about what's left that we can loose. It's about what we could win.

So, just wake up. ANd think about what we can have, start asking for things instead of waiting that what you deserve is attacked by one more stupid law. Take back the street. Threatens and challenge the ones in power. Use the solidarity and means of communications you have around you.

The issue is not the politicians. The issue is you. You let them control your life. It's time for a change.