Revision as of 17:57, 12 June 2015

Narratives

All of us, without exception, believe a mix of truth and misinformation, and often enough, disinformation. We strive to understand the world as it is, and not how it looks only according to our preconceptions, which are shaped by a multitude of forces, embedded as we are in our cultural matrix. Sometimes, the most unlikely seeming explanation turns out to be the correct one. In a warrior mindset we consider alternative views, but question everything.

People and communities use stories to understand the world and our place in it. These stories are embedded with power - the power to explain and justify the status quo as well as the power to make change imaginable and urgent. A narrative analysis of power encourages us to ask: Which stories define cultural norms? Where did these stories come from? Whose stories were ignored or erased to create these norms? And, most urgently, what new stories can we tell to help create the world we desire? ^[1]

• Timeline merchants of death
• Timeline masters of the internet

Mindmaps and mindsets

If a mindmap is a cognitive "hathanger" then a mindset are the clothes hanging on the hathanger. Most traditions have mindmaps that have been and are evolving locally from the experiences of the previous generations on what worked and what didn't for them. Afaik, the oldest mindmaps use trees and wheels. And all mindmaps are generalisations in the wind without grounding details if not from there. Asking for details from ones own cultural matrix is not enough. Not even close. One needs to eat the local food, drink the water, breathe the air, listen to the stories, smell the earth, feel the bark of the trees, see local peoples, and experience local ways to catch what can only be described as a mere glimpse of the answer 42, the knowledge hidden in the trees and wheels in that specific locality on this beautiful planet.

• Petty tyrants - mindmap used to illustrate a "warrior mindset". The “petty tyrants” are mentioned in The Fire Within ^[2]: A petty tyrant is a tormentor. Someone who either holds the power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction. Petty tyrants can teach us detachment.
• Captivating capital and copyfighting - Patent and copyright laws support the expansion of the range of creative human activities that can be commodified, paralleling the ways in which capitalism is leading to the commodification of many aspects of social life that before were not considered to have monetary or economic value.
• Digital threats, detection, protection and (counter) moves is a page listing theoretical defenses and detection methods for selected groups of leaked surveillance programs and services. This is just a thought experiment covering (theoretical) defenses against these attacks and not intended to spread fear, uncertainty or doubt about surveillance states. Due to the age and limited scope of the leaked documents and what we are up against ^[3], the defenses mentioned in these tables are not to be relied upon for protection and I make no guarantees to their accuracy. Things move incredibly fast in the internet arena. Do your own research knowing it is impossible to be completely safe. "Knowing complete safety does not exist" is also a stop-condition in recursive distrust cycles. Stay aware, awake, and alert, but out of paranoia. :)

Methodologies, processes and choreographies

Most processes are adapted to allow for minimalist approaches and to minimalise the risk of becoming the petty tyrants we fight.

• Shortest retrospective ever
• Uncluttering
• Scenario planning
• Threat modeling the quick and dirty way
• Walk of the wolf
• Linux development process
• Consensus processes that work

Unexpected forms of logic

• All senses and common sense
• Non-linear time
• Roleplay and controlled folly
• Confusing surveillance systems

Controlled folly

Standing on a hilltop in a thunderstorm on bare feet, wearing wet copper armour, holding a lightning rod and shouting ... bring it on, ye gods and godesses!

We use lawful techniques and tools. And if need be we invent new (GNU and creative commons licensed) techniques and tools ^[4].

Installing linux

• Shopping for a linux distro
• Installing linux tips & tricks
• Installing a stripped debian (running *only* what you need)
• Making your own images

Linux security

• Turning camera off
• Turning microphone off
• Managing passwords
• Learning to use a firewall

• Safer browsing
• ...

• Implementing an encryption strategy (see Threat modeling the quick and dirty way)
• Further hardening of armour
• Maintaining integrity of your system

Kinky linux commandline

• Command Line Culture (CLI)
• Getting started
• Working with files
• Input/Output redirection
• Regular expressions
• Network connections
• Process management (job control)
• Shell scripting
• Network connections
• Reconnaissance
• Reverse engineering
• Network exploitation and monitoring

Anonymising

• Liberté Linux, Tails, Whonix, Freepto, which one will work for me?
• Liberté Linux, Tails, Whonix, Freepto: security notes

Clean up all teh things

Removing metadata from images:

• Reading and removing exif metadata with exiftool
• Reading exif metadata with jhead
• Removing exif metadata with imagemagick

PDF's:

• Scrubbing pdf metadata with hexedit
• Scrubbing pdf metadata with pdftk and sed

Social engineering

Storing

• Using basket
• Using dradis

Profiling

• Using crunch
• Using wyd

Autonomy shaping infrastructure

• Using server auctions
• Setting up a linux server
• Server security
• ...

References

1. ↑ Harnessing the power of narrative for social change https://www.newtactics.org/conversation/change-story-harnessing-power-narrative-social-change
2. ↑ The Fire From Within: http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan7.html
3. ↑ Cryptome: Communications privacy folly http://cryptome.org/2012/06/comms-folly.htm
4. ↑ Portal - 'Still Alive' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI