Here is a taste of some of the sort of things we chatted about this month - our version of the Chatham House Rule applies, so nobody is directly identified, in order to promote open communication, even on controversial, sensitive or potentially illegal topics.
This is not a substitute for coming along to the meetings in person: - remember that everyone is welcome, no matter your age or experience or skills (or lack of them), from both sides of the legal fence.
- More Travel plans for attending Hacking At Random Vierhouten, Netherlands - Thursday 13th to Sunday 16th August 2009
- How to frustrate some of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's Communications Traffic Data snooping plans e.g.
- TrueCrypt encryption software.
- Tor exit node risk evaluation. How soon will the new Bridge Relays feature, designed for heavily censored totalitarian countries like China or Saudi Arabia or Zimbabwe etc. be needed here in the UK ?
- Cisco routers in, say, Nigeria, with the password(s) set to "cisco"
- Non-UK / Non-European Union / Non-USA based Virtual Private Network services e.g. SwissVPN.net
- Mobile Phone GSM Gateways
- Mobile Phone SMS message hubs, Asterix open source VoIP etc. - see "Mobiles in-a-box from the Tactical Technology Collective is a collection of tools, tactics, how-to guides and case studies designed to help advocacy and activist organisations use mobile technology in their work."
- Freedom of Information Act request to the Home Office, to try to elicit which major "Communications Service Providers" i.e. which Telcos and ISPs have been served with "a notice in writing" by the Home Secretary, under The Data Retention Regulations 2009 which came into force in 6th April 2009.
- Asus EE Linux / SD Flash memory sub-notebooks for mobile web browsing etc.
- ARM microprocessor development board
- IBM's purchase of outblaze, an email services company that operates quite a few lesser known free webmail services. Some connection to an IBM information gathering project?
- A counterfeit Nokia N95 mobile phone. The only obvious hardware difference is that the camera iris is smaller than a real N95. This fake can make and receive calls but does not have a GPS and the camera is low resolution. Ebay buyers beware.