[HOT] Computer Security / GPG - First do no harm

[Trevor Ellermann]

Hey All,

As HOT talks about getting involved in Syria I want to take a moment
to talk about security. Email is unencrypted by default and very easy
to intercept. The Syrian regime is known to be snooping on all
internet traffic in Syria. They have arrested, tortured and killed
people and in some cases their families based on emails they have
intercepted.

I want to highlight the public-ness of this email list. You don't even
have to intercept an email to read it and with the blog post, we
likely have brought attention to it. So before you post anything at
all to this list about Syria, please think first about the safety of
the people on the ground over there.

Here is a page with information on basic computer security. I highly
recommend that everyone at least glance at it and hopefully learn how
to use gpg.

http://www.patternsinthevoid.net/security.html

A separate email account for encrypted communications is sometimes
preferred. I recommend riseup for that (https://riseup.net/en).

If you have any questions, thoughts or comments please don't hesitate to ask.

--T