When Joseph and Maria from the Slow Tech group came to see Soph and my GPShow at the end our residency at Ausland (see the news page), they invited us to join them at CryptoParty Berlin‘s next event which was last night.
Only I was able to go but I had a wonderful night, from which I’m still buzzing. I can’t praise this initiative enough: there was a warm, friendly atmosphere of sharing and helping one another, with fantastic, open-hearted moderation by Malte who later taught me everything I now know about gpg. Not only that, but we were sitting for part of the evening next to the very witty Isis, one of the Tor developers, who very generously shared her public key with all of us.
I can’t remember when I last stayed up until the small hours and felt totally wired. The night was so good, I think I’ll go to the next one they have. Check out your local cryptoparty here. It’s so much more than teaching people cryptography.
Oh, and why would you want to send encrypted messages and want to browse anonymously? Ask yourself if you want to carbon copy GCHQ and the NSA on all your emails and send them the details of exactly what you’re watching online. Nothing to hide? Tell that to someone who’s seen a regime change in the country they live in. There’s a few million of them here in former East Germany.