Programming cryptoparties in Libraries

Damien Belveze (1)

1 INSA Rennes - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes

IFLA statement on privacy and its role to librarians commitment For french students, privacy is usually not included in the curriculum excepts in the margins, as a part of an optional course that some student attend to make their digital skills certified (C2i)[1]. A few years ago, I noticed among students of my former engineering school a real lack of knowledge on privacy and an insufficient perception of its importance, particularly in the building of mobile application, though these students are often asked to design apps that are supposed to collect users data. At the university of Rennes1, I am in charge of training sessions for students from undergraduate level to PhD. I usually teach them how to find valid and relevant scientific information, how to manage bibliographic references, how to become an open scientist in the sense of Open Access. My colleagues also show them how to manage, store and share research data. Encrytion can sometimes be related to some of these topics. PhD students, for instance, who collect data on sensitive matters like drug side effects should sometimes consider encrypting these data in order to avoid theft or espionage attempts as they sometimes occur inside or outside the lab[2]. Apart from my duty at the university, I am also member of a local association who promotes the use of Open Source software and supports the cause of privacy. As much as possible, I try to make both activities meet in a professional context : cryptoparty is a way of making this possible. Chloe Lailic, my former colleague of INSA Rennes library and I share the same goal: spread cryptoparties in as many french libraries as possible including public libraries as well as academic ones. We decided to start from our own institution and have organized each year since 2015 an annual event about privacy. We have been feeling more legitimate doing this since IFLA released its statement on privacy on August 2015[3]. This declaration brought us attention from our colleagues and support from our library administration boards. Definition of cryptoparties I will not try to define again what a cryptoparty can be or can not be. I will only refer to Asher Wolf's definition of it in her very inspiring book[4] published online and anonymously accessible via Tor. A cryptoparty in an event designed to let every citizen learn basic encryption tools and understand how they operate. This event must be commercially non aligned. Organizers should not get support from any for-profit corporation. A cryptoparty must also be politically neutral, even if policy making in the field of privacy can be questioned. Cryptoparties are open to everybody. Security experts are welcome as trainers, or as attendees provided they do not take precedence over invited speakers and trainers. We would like this event to be as inclusive as possible. Since 2015, we have been trying to escape two major difficulties: on one hand, we do not want to fuel paranoia among our attendees, on the other side, we try to raise the level of awareness of the younger who often do not pay enough attention to their use of social media. Moreover, when it comes to our ears, we do not let the " nothing to hide " argument uninterrogated. After having attended one of our cryptoparties, people should consider privacy and digital rights as a part of their fundamental rights, if this was not the case before.

Mots clés: cryptoparty; privacy; libraries

Domaines: Sciences de l'information et de la communication

Damien Belveze. Programming cryptoparties in Libraries: How Librarians can contribute to Students and Citizens empowerment against tracking and mass-surveillance. 2017. ⟨hal-01504076⟩