Networking and internet security workshop(s)

[Bald Eagle]

I'd like to get a lot of tech/IT people together to have a conference / workshop focused on creating, implementing, and expanding a self-sufficient intranet, and teaching people the fundamentals of internet security such as open port vulnerabilities, etc.

I envision this as a two-stage process:

1.  Tech / IT people get together, drink lots of coffee and Mountain Dew, and spew incomprehensible techno-babble to each other while building a functioning intranet that works across WinBloze/Unix/Linux/Apple/Mac platforms.  Ideas for communicating basic but important network security practices to laymen/(L)Users are discussed, outlined, and worked into an agenda for a workshop.

2. Folks show up to see the functioning intranet showcased, have their systems set up to be part of the intranet, and then an informational workshop is held to help people understand the basics of networking and networks security.

I'd like to gauge Tech / IT people's interest in doing the work to pull something like this off, and what sort of time schedule we are looking at.

email me - bill at ivys spice of life (all one word) dot com, phone number is on the website.

THANKS!

[J’raxis 270145]

Some projects already out there that might fit what you're looking for:—

https://www.torproject.org/
http://www.i2p2.de/
http://www.freenetproject.org/

I did a presentation on computer security for the AltExpo, and wanted to, at some point, do an all-day event giving people more in-depth information:—

http://altexpo.org/computer_security

[Ryan McGuire]

Great idea. I'd love to get involved.

I agree with J'raxis that a lot of this is already implemented in the wild, but we'd just need to standardize amongst ourselves what technologies we want to use and then host sessions teaching people how to use them.

At the very least, I'd love to setup a PGP keysigning party, that would be an incremental/easy way to start building up the network of people who may be interested in this sort of thing.

[Bald Eagle]

Yes, absolutely.
I've heard lots of people TALK about using PGP.  I've even gotten emails signed with a public key.
I've just never gotten PGP set up, or ever actually USED it.

So even baby steps in the right direction would be a good start because it would be SOMETHING.

[jaqeboy]

I'd like to get a lot of tech/IT people together to have a conference / workshop focused on creating, implementing, and expanding a self-sufficient intranet, and teaching people the fundamentals of internet security such as open port vulnerabilities, etc.

Yeah, you are just ahead of the AltExpo's organizing of this, which we announced we would do at the talks at AltExpo#3 at LF09. Let's work together to make it so!

J'raxis' format at AltExpo was excellent - a top-to-bottom intro - all you could cram into one hour! It could be expanded into a full day, and he offered to do hands-on security improvements to people's hardware, ie, bring in your laptop or desktop, hear the seminar, ask questions, try to make the changes yourself, teach will come around to your table to help implement anything you're having difficulty with. It wouldn't take us to a self-sufficient intranet yet, but would bring everyone up to the best possible level of security with their existing hardware and with existing software out there.

[Mike Barskey]

I'm interested as well, although I would participate in Bills step #2.

Wasn't Error trying to set up a private ID system based on a web of trust? And if so, isn't it important to that endeavor that people understand and use PGP (or some agreed upon key standard)?

I think that Bill's original idea is a great one: even though there are potential projects in the wild that might help people be secure, a comprehensive system (I guess Bill's intranet?) that makes it easy for laypeople to participate securely would be fantastic!

[thinkliberty]

Yes, absolutely.
I've heard lots of people TALK about using PGP.  I've even gotten emails signed with a public key.
I've just never gotten PGP set up, or ever actually USED it.

So even baby steps in the right direction would be a good start because it would be SOMETHING.

If you use linux and want to use kmail for email it comes with the gnupg stuff built in to it. It also comes with spam assassin and bogofilter built in which is nice. gnupg is integrated really well in the whole kde wm as well.

We have security topics all the time at LUG meetings in NH and MA.  Maybe I should post a notice here when those happen.

[Russell Kanning]

cool idea
where would you hold this?
we could have some of us actually start using pgp and choose some system out there to network with
I like going to these kinds of events and LUGs, so I am not the geekiest guy in the room

[K. Darien Freeheart]

Wasn't Error trying to set up a private ID system based on a web of trust? And if so, isn't it important to that endeavor that people understand and use PGP (or some agreed upon key standard)?

From what I understood, his ID was going to utilize GPG, but it would take the "work" aspect out of implimenting. I'm still very, VERY interested in that project, but I've not seen him bring it up again.

I've heard lots of people TALK about using PGP.  I've even gotten emails signed with a public key.
I've just never gotten PGP set up, or ever actually USED it.

If you use linux and want to use kmail for email it comes with the gnupg stuff built in to it. It also comes with spam assassin and bogofilter built in which is nice. gnupg is integrated really well in the whole kde wm as well.

<linuxy geekness>Gnome has a great utility called Seahorse for generating and managing GPG keys. Nautilus has GPG encrypting/signing built in.</linuxy geekness>

Once you've got key management and encrypted/signed files, you don't need much more.

For cross-platform GPG in e-mail I suggest Thunderbird + Enigmail OR FireGPG addon for Firefox if you use webmail. Both require valid keys already exist.

I'm especially interested in the intranet idea. The idea of guerrilla internet is fascinating to me. The only "real" weakness I see in modern internet infrastructure is the heavy reliance on other people's (i.e. easy targets for government restriction) connections. Everything else is redundant or modular enough to be dealt with.

[thinkliberty]

We could use something like  fido net (old school dial up bbs type system.) We could even use ham radio to broadcast between nodes of more localized wifi mesh network ( too connect from places like concord - manchester together)  it's not as instant as email, but not technically hard to do.

This kind of system has a chicken egg problem... You need a lot of users setup with wireless routers to get it to work, users don't want to buy equipment for something that does not work yet.

The other problem is comcast and other ISPs would not allow users to share their bandwidth to connect it to the internet... so people are running hardware with little to no connection to anything else at first and then after that people can't connect to the internet with it.