Because I advocate apolitical action to achieve change in the world I periodically get political types snidely asking, “Well what have you done for liberty?” It’s a fair question. My recent efforts have been primarily focused on teaching people how to defend themselves online. Fortunately I’m not alone. I’ve been working with some phenomenal people to run CryptoPartyMN, and organization created specifically to teach people how to use security means of communications.
Our work hasn’t gone unnoticed either. A few weeks ago James Shiffer from the Star Tribune contacted us. He was working on an article covering Crypto War II and wanted to interview members of CryptoPartyMN to understand the counterarguments to the State’s claims that effective cryptography puts everybody at risk. In addition to interviewing several of us he also attended the last CryptoParty. The result was this article. As you can tell from the article we’ve got everything you could possibly want:
The three CryptoParty presenters were Burg, 32, a Twin Cities software developer and Second Amendment supporter whose blog is called “A Geek With Guns.” The two others are cannabis activists Cassie Traun, 26, an IT professional who “never really trusted the government,” and Kurtis Hanna, 30, an unsuccessful candidate for Minneapolis mayor and state Legislature who said he became interested in the issue after the revelations of NSA spying.
Guns, weed, and crypto. Between the three of us we’ve got pretty much every important freedom issue covered!
So, yeah, that’s one of the things I’ve been up to.