UBEW

Secure(r) Communications for Your Campaign

2012-10-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

The following came form a brainstorm with UBEW members...

Seven Practical Security, Trust, and Privacy Suggestions for Your Campaign

Trust! Action planning should happen IN PERSON with people who are trusted or vouched for.
Privacy! People should NEVER share other people's emails, names, phone numbers, and personal info without their consent.
Separate! Use a SEPARATE organizer email list from an announcement email list.
Outreach! Add people to the organizer list only AFTER you have physically met them and if they have been vouched for.
Secure! Assume email is insecure. Action planning should NEVER be discussed on the internet.
Communicate! Use the organizer list to announce MEETINGS, but never to discuss strategy or details of actions.
Announce! Public info (open actions, etc) should be ANNOUNCED as widely as necessary at the strategically appropriate time.

Bonus Suggestions

If at a planning meeting, someone isn't present to vouch for someone, ask them to leave. Also trust your intuition.
If organizing actions, use an email that is unconnected to the rest of your life.
Social networking may be fine to announce public info, but is otherwise terrible security-wise, since you have no control over how it is distributed. Social networking sites often provide ways for the authorities to easily gather information.
Be aware of your email chains. Have an understanding about what can be forwarded or copied.
Text message are more easily searchable for the authorities (legally and technically) than just about any medium. Be aware.
If you use email of SMS, don't talk in code. Authorities have argued in court that coded words or deliberately obscured references were allusions to even worse things.
Public members, such as spokespeople, should not participate in actions (and possibly planning), because they will be targeted. The less they know, the safer everyone is.
If open-organizing low-risk actions, some of the above guidelines can be loosened, but be cautious.

Learn Stuff

2012-09-26T11:42:00.001-07:00

UBEW is a local radical tech collective. We host regular technology workshops, social events, and ongoing projects. Our goal is to make technology accessible to people for whom it is often out-of-reach and educating people about responsible and sustainable uses of technology that work toward a better world.

UBEW is a collectively-run, all-volunteer, non-profit organization. We want to encourage your interest in technology and provide a way for all of us to exercise our radical politics. If you’d love to work with awesome folks who feel comfortable expressing their geeky, playful, intellectually-curious side, join us.

UBEW Meet & Geek

2011-01-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday of every month 6pm
New Location!
Cool months: Poet & Patriot, 320 Cedar Street (Nov - Mar)
Warm months: Bocci's Cellar, 140 Encinal Street (Apr - Oct)

This is our monthly, open meeting for tech-minded people who have an interest in software and hardware projects that benefit the community. We'll share ideas, help each other with projects, geek out in an egalitarian format, and consume mugs of frothy fermented grain beverage in the process (optional). A background or an interest in making stuff, computer programming, building hardware or electronics, and general geek culture might be helpful in understanding what the hell we are talking and laughing about.

Geeks Against Sexism

2010-12-25T17:14:00.000-08:00

We want to see more women in the tech world. We know hella women with mad skills who don’t wanna deal with a scene in which male dominance is the status quo. Yeah, no wonder. We don’t either.

We want to encourage your interest in technology and provide a way for all of us to exercise our radical politics. We'd love to be working with more awesome women who feel comfortable expressing their geeky, playful, intellectually-curious side. We play around with servers and software and programming and robotics and building stuff. We teach people and create infrastructure for the radical community.

If you’ve ever soldered something and enjoyed it, or if you’ve ever learned a programming language and felt brilliant, or if you’ve ever designed something that worked perfectly, we'd like to share more of that with you in an environment where men, women, and trans folks can connect.

UBEW provides mutual support to anti-authoritarian groups making radical social change through direct action, community involvement, and education. We are a geek collective with roots in the anarchist tradition, so we are explicitly opposed to all forms of domination, including sexism, racism, and classism. We strive to learn from each other and focus our skills toward creative goals, to explore and research liberating uses of technology, and to work to create a new and better world.

We host regular Free Skool Hacktivism classes at SubRosa and a once-a-month Meet & Geek social the last Thursday of the month at 730pm at Bocci’s Cellar. We’d love to meet you and make cool stuff.

A Riseup/UBEW Benefit

2010-11-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

A Riseup/UBEW Benefit

2010-11-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

An Evening of Extraordinary Proportions

On December 11th, we will be hosting a joint benefit for Riseup, a 10 year old tech collective that provides email and list hosting for much of the activist community, and UBEW, our local radical tech collective.

You are invited. It will, we believe, be quite an extraordinary affair.

an Elegant Three-Course Dinner,
with a

Semi-Silent Auction of Unusual and Curious Items,
featuring

Destruction of Frustrating Technology,

and finally
resolving the infamous "War of the Currents" after 100 years,

an Exhibition Prizefighting Match

between

Nikola "Master of Lightning" Tesla

and

Thomas "Wizard of Menlo Park" Edison.

Old Timey Formal Dress (steamy and late 19 Century formal) encouraged

Our goal is to raise between $2000 and $4000 for Riseup. This will also support UBEW's modest budget in the next year.

Saturday 11 December 6pm to 10pm

Sliding Scale Donation to support Riseup and UBEW

$20 - $35 presale

$25 - $45 as the door

Tickets are available here online.

Here is a small sample of some of the Types of Items that will be Auctioned-Off at the Semi-Silent Auction:

Steam-punk Jewelry
Stimulating Geek Dates
The Work of Talented Local Artists
Open Source Software Bundles
Exciting Adventures
Tantalizing Libations

Notes from the surveillance apocalypse

2010-10-28T15:49:00.001-07:00

Back doors for the government to spy on us
----------------------------------------
The Obama administration is drafting a law that would make all internet communications services in the US come with a "back door" -- a way in for them to surveil all information, when requested. This would effectively end legal secure encrypted communication in the US.

We're hoping it doesn't go into law, but it is a reminder of how the powers that be want all access passes to all your information.

More detailed information from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/government-seeks

(thanks to our friends at riseup for passing on the news)

Thursday Work Meeting: Determination

2010-10-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

Things we have determined today:

Dodge trusts Muirkat emotionally enough to be honest about checking Facebook during a work meeting
New intern Doctor is a good worker
Our groupie Annie is easily frustrated
The guy at the next table WENT TO MESA VERDE and is more than willing to tell everyone within earshot about his extensive knowledge of southwest archeological sites
If Annie had brought a laptop we could chat with her rather than have to talk
Cyrus gets up late, but has a lot of spirit
It would be good to set up a free skool alpha drupal instances
Our barrista is cute in an apron
git is confusing but powerful
Dodge observes that when you are doing work and are about 27 sub-tasks deep, it is difficult to remember what you were doing originally
If you thought talking loudly on a cell phone in a cafe was irritating, wait until the guy next to you Skypes someone, talking loudly to a small (but loud) tinny voice. "Can you see me?!" **waves and smiles broadly**

Hacktivism 102: Practicing Electronic Civil Disobedience

2010-10-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
Thu Nov 4th, 18th, Dec 2nd, 16th, 30th, Jan 13th, 27th - 5-7:30pm

The second class in the hacktivism series.
Wikipedia says that "Hacktivism . . . is the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends." The goal of this class is to learn and use these tools in order to create the technical infrastructures needed for radical endeavors. If you have ideas for projects, skills to share, or simply an interest, join us! From programming to electronics to social/network engineering. Let's create opensource projects and knowledgebases that our widespread communities can use.

Introduction to Circuit Hacking

2010-09-10T23:59:00.001-07:00

Circuit Hacking
Thursday, Sept. 16 at 5pm
Subrosa - 703 Pacific Ave.

Never built an electronic circuit before? Come learn the basic skills necessary for soldering. Instruction is free but for $15 you can build and take home a TV-B-Gone kit. With it, you can turn off almost any TV up to 50 yards away.

Dr. Suess coined the word “nerd.”

2010-08-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

The first documented use of the word Nerd is in the 1950 Dr. Seuss story, If I Ran the Zoo, in which a boy named Gerald McGrew made a large number of delightfully extravagant claims as to what he would do, if he were in charge at the zoo. Among these was that he would bring a creature known as a Nerd from the land of Ka-Troo. The accompanying illustration showed a grumpy humanoid with unruly hair and sideburns, wearing a black T-shirt. A fitting image, these days, for a nerd.

The term originated in the 1950 book “If I Ran the Zoo”. From the book:

“And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Ka-Troo. And Bring Back an IT-KUTCH, a PREEP and a PROO, a NERKLE, a NERD, and a SEERSUCKER, too!”

According to the American Heritage Dictionary’s word history. Experts ‘maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator of nerd and that the word nerd (“comically unpleasant creature”) was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers, had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class, a “square.”’

Upcoming Events

2010-08-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hackbloc Santa Cruz
Bocci's Cellar, 140 Encinal Street, Santa Cruz
Last Thursday of every month 6pm

This is our monthly, open meeting for tech-minded people who have an interest in software and hardware projects that benefit the community. We'll share ideas, help each other with projects, geek out in an egalitarian format, and consume mugs of frothy fermented grain beverage in the process (optional). Note: There may be Bocce involved. A background or an interest in computer programming or building computing hardware or electronics.

Hacktivism 101: Practicing Electronic Civil Disobediance
SubRosa, 703 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz
Thu July 8th, 22nd, Aug 5th, 19th, Sep 2nd, 16th - 5-7:30pm

Wikipedia says that "Hacktivism . . . is the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends." The goal of this class is to learn and use these tools in order to create the technical infrastructures needed for radical endeavors. If you have ideas for projects, skills to share, or simply an interest, join us! From programming to electronics to social/network engineering. Let's create opensource projects and knowledgebases that our widespread communities can use.

For Contact email: ubew000@gmail.com

Exploit code, not people

2010-05-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

From the hackbloc.org site whose tagline is "Exploit code, not people:"

Our mission is to research, create and disseminate information, tools, and tactics that empower people to use technology in a way that is liberating. We support and strengthen our local communities through education and action. We strive to learn from each other and focus our skills toward creative goals, to explore and research positive hacktivism, and to defend a free internet and free society!

We're down with that.