Category Archives: ASD Next Phase Events

ASD Next Phase Events, Digging Deeper, Raw Thought at The DNA Lounge, Remembering Aaron

Raw Thought “Q & A Event” 7:30 PM January 11th, DNA Lounge SF

By Lisa Rein

Remembering Aaron – A thoughtful “Q & A Event”

Come to the Raw Thought Q & A event – with vegan pizza and discussion – on Friday, January 11th, at the DNA Lounge from 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm (before the music starts at  our  monthly RAW THOUGHT event, at 10pm- TICKETS HERE).

Many of the volunteers and attendees at last year’s Aaron Swartz Day event asked us to provide a smaller get together for discussion. This is us trying to do that :-)

We will be discussing and learning about Aaron’s life & history, including some Q & A time that I’ve been promising for a while.

We will also discuss some of the new things we have learned over the past year about the bizarre situation around Aaron’s court case.

Vegan pizza will be served! (It’s really yummy! :-) (Gluten-free crust available upon request – email aaronswartzday@gmail.com)

Besides myself, Ryan Shapiro, who headed up the recent FOIA case where he discovered Aaron was on the FBI’s radar as early back as 2007, will be there in person to tell us about his FOIA lawsuit – where he was able to obtain parts of Aaron’s FBI file that were previously unavailable.

Ryan’s lawsuit, and the documents it obtained, helped us to understand that Aaron had been erroneously swept up in a 2007 terrorist investigation. This most likely caused the FBI to treat him with rougher hands during its subsequent encounters with him afterwards. Here’s the article explaining more: https://gizmodo.com/fbi-secretly-collected-data-on-aaron-swartz-earlier-tha-1831076900

Email me at AaronSwartzDay@gmail.com to RSVP & get on the guest list. If you wish to purchase a $10 ticket, great! – you can do so here.

Afterwards, we are having another “Raw Thought” music and art event – with an art installation by Grumpy Green.

Artwork by Grumpy Green.

DJs include: Mochipet, Tha Spyryt, Cain MacWitish and Ozlo Glowing (Ailz). Projekt Seahorse is doing visuals and is also displaying his art.

Raw Thought, of course, was the name of Aaron’s prolific blog, which you can read more of here: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/archive

We will move forward together and make the world better!
No one can stop us <3

Aaron Swartz Day 2018 - Projects, ASD Next Phase Events, ASD Police Surveillance Project, History, Journalist's Toolbox, Surveillance, Surveillance Reform

Tracy Rosenberg Explains How to Compel Police & Sheriff Departments To Admit What Surveillance Equipment They Already Have

See Tracy Live at this year’s San Francisco Hackathon!

TICKETS HERE

Lisa Rein has written a pair of articles in Mondo 2000 with Tracy Rosenberg from OaklandPrivacy.org.

Tracy explains the importance of the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project, and its mission of filing public records requests en masse, in order to retroactively determine what kinds of surveillance equipment and software a city’s Police and Sheriff Departments already have.

We will have a complete tutorial with templates and step-by-step instructions, so you to start doing this yourself, next week.

For now, please read these articles to get a better idea of why this project is so important, for all of us, right now.

How a little “working group” stopped Oakland from becoming a mini-fusion center for the Department of Homeland Security.

(How The Occupy Oakland Privacy Working Group became Oakland Privacy)

 

and

Interview with Oakland Privacy’s Tracy Rosenberg On The Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project

 

ASD Next Phase Events, Privacy Hackathons

This Saturday: Aaron Swartz Day “Next Phase” Hackathon and Pursuance Party

We are excited to finally starting the #ASDNextPhase activities! :-) No big deal, but we’re meeting tomorrow during the weekly “Cypherpunks Write Code” hackathon at Noisebridge.

When: Saturday, December 9, 4pm-10pm PST (in meatspace, in San Francisco, and also remotely, online)

Where: Online (instructions coming soon) and at Noisebridge, (3rd floor of 2169 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110-1219, at the Cypherpunks Write Code Privacy Hackathon

(Organizers in other parts of the world: please write lisa-at-lisarein.com with your meatspace location and time, so she can add it here.)

Objective:

Hey folks! It’s been a month and it’s time to reconnect and regroup and help each others’ projects move on to the next level. (Or help each other start a new project from the beginning!)

It’s also time for the long awaited first round of user testing for the Pursuance Project.

The Pursuance Project, if you remember, is the project originally envisioned by Barrett Brown and brought to life by Steve Phillips.

Here’s an interview with both of them explaining the project in more detail, and also explaining the project’s connection to one of Aaron’s blog posts.

Around 5pm – once we’re pretty sure everyone’s there – we’ll be giving some brief introductions and also some project updates. Anyone interested in sharing an update or giving an introduction about a new project is encouraged to do so.

These are low pressure 5 minute talks in a small room, where you are explaining briefly:

  • the goal of your project
  • what you’ve accomplished so far
  • what you need to do next
  • what you need other people to do next
  • other information, code, considerations, so people can help determine if the project is right for them

Ways You Can Participate Saturday – Either In Person or Remotely

1) Remote User Testing

a) Basic Remote User Testing

Sign up for Pursuance, create a Mattermost account (to make up for a little functionality that Pursuance doesn’t have yet), and write Steve Phillips at: steve-at-tryingtobeawesome.com to let him know that you are IN on Saturday.

b) Join Some Groups, and Write About What You See

  • Were you able to look around and follow the conversations?
  • How did the user interface look?
  • Did you find yourself thinking “gotta fix the (problem here)” as you were clicking around?
  • Could you tell what the hell was even going on?

Talk to us dammit! :-)

Email your feedback to the Pursuance Team at: team-at-pursuanceproject.org  and Please include: “User Feedback” in the email’s subject header!

2) Meatspace (IRL) User Testing:

a) Noisebridge San Francisco Hackathon from 4-10pm

Come to this week’s Cypherpunks Write Code hackathon from 4-10pm, at Noisebridge, in San Francisco. RSVP (by emailing Steve Phillips at: steve-at-tryingtobeawesome.com) to let us know that you’ll be there in person. (Or perhaps you’re not sure which yet.)

b) Create a “Pursuance Project” at an existing hackathon or at any hackerspace.

See if the folks at any hackathon you are already attending this weekend are interested in having a Pursuance Party. Then provide both IRL and remote user feedback back to the Pursuance Team at: team-at-pursuanceproject.org.

c) Have your own Pursuance Party at home or at any WIFI-enabled restaurant or cafe.

Have a Pursuance Party at any location and invite all your friends! (Tech and non-tech alike :)

3) Forget about User Testing, and hop over to the Pursuance Project’s GitHub Page, to do some old fashioned hacking on bugs and new features.