Category Archives: Pirate Party

Privacy & Surveillance

Saturday: Fight back against government surveillance!

Reprinted from the Massachusetts Pirate Party.

This year is the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the PATRIOT Act made possible by the 9/11 attacks. Since then, government and corporate surveillance continues to expand. We will join Pirates nationwide to push back on the effort to surveill our public spaces by mapping the surveillance cameras in East Boston. Join us!

At noon on September 16th, we will meet at the East Boston Public Library at 365 Bremen Street, East Boston. It is an eight minute walk from the Airport MBTA Blue Line stop. The library has a link you can use to get directions there.

We will then divide up into teams and fan out to map cameras. We encourage everyone to wear a mask and social distance.

Register now so we know you are coming!

On Sunday, we hope you will join us in Acton for a relaxing afternoon talking, eating and, weather permitting, swimming in a pool. Register separately. Attendance at the East Boston outing is not required. It is potluck, so if you want to bring something, add to our etherpad.

We posted instructions for how to use several camera mapping apps on your phone so you can get ready. Check out what we have mapped so far at cctv.masspirates.org!

Current Affairs, Photography, Pirate Party, Social Justice

2022 Trans Resistance March

Attended this year’s Trans Resistance March in Roxbury with the Mass. Pirates contingent. Included are photos I took of or after it.

Black Trans Lives Matter Puerto Rico Pride Bans Off Our Bodies Eyes Love + Vote My Trans Sister Is Beautiful Disobedience Is Self Defense Reflecting On A March Stonewall Was A Riot! Govt. Laws Off Our Bodies Fuck Nazis Protect Trans Healthcare

Some crowd shots:

Our waving Trans/Jolly Roger flags were popular:

I was joined by Purple Bandana:

Trans Resistance March

He got one of me with the Trans/Jolly Roger flags:

Eventually, we arrived at Franklin Park:

Afterward, I got a few local pictures including of street art:

Maze Graffiti Weld Ave. Mural Jackson - Weld Ave. Mural

The man in this mural introduced himself to me.

This park was locked preventing kids from playing in it:

Not Free To Play

The whole photo album:

Trans Resistance March 2022
Pirate Party, Speech

Attacks on Section 230

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Steve and I talked about the CDA Section 230 gutting SAFE TECH Act on the latest Pirate News livestream. You can read a redline version.

Some of the articles we reference:

We live stream Sundays at 7:30pm Eastern. You can find past recordings at MassPirates.org.

Pirate Party, Privacy & Surveillance

Boston Facial Recognition Ban Hearing Today

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Reposting this from the Massachusetts Pirate Party. If you live in Boston, do contact your city councilor and tell them to support this ordinance. Details below.

Today at 3pm, Boston City Council’s Committee on Government Operations will discuss a proposed ordinance to ban face surveillance in Boston. The hearing will be by Zoom meeting and the public may watch this meeting via live stream at boston.gov/city-council-tv.

It is too late to address the committee, but you can still provide written testimony. Details below. The ACLU put together a toolkit for activists that includes model testimony. There are also public education resources available at https://aclum.org/presspause.

Please attend the hearing and help out in the following ways:

  1. Sign and share the ACLU’s petition in support of the campaign: https://action.aclu.org/petition/ban-face-surveillance-boston;
  2. Encouraging your friends and family in Boston to provide testimony in support of this ordinance;
  3. If you live in Boston, contact your city councilor and tell them to support this ordinance. You can find a list and email them at https://www.boston.gov/departments/city-council. The ACLU has a toolkit for activists that includes contact information for the city councilors.

Written comments may be sent to the Committee or staff email (below) and will be made a part of the record and available to all Councilors.

Email:  ccc.go@boston.gov/christine.odonnell@boston.gov Attn:  Christine O’Donnell, Docket #0683 

Fax Number:  617-635-4203 Attn:  Christine O’Donnell, Docket #0683 

Mail Address:  Docket #0683, City Council, City Hall, 5th Floor, Boston MA  02201

Privacy & Surveillance, Web/Tech

Protecting Your Digital Identity Workshop

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Recently I gave a workshop on protecting your digital identity for the 2019 Digital Literacy Fall & Winter Workshop series run by the Somerville Media Center and the Somerville Public Library.

You can download a slightly updated version of my slide deck.

If you would be interested in such a workshop for your community, non-profit group or company, please feel free to contact me at jokeefe at jamesokeefe dot org and I would be happy to setup a time or help find other members of the Somerville Cryptoparty group to teach.

Computer Security, Pirate Party, Web/Tech

App Privacy Workshop (Updated)

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I gave an application privacy workshop at Code for Boston on Tuesday. They recorded my talk on Facebook:

and on YouTube:

I posted the slide deck as a PDF. Feel free to offer suggestions in the comments.

Some of the topics I need to add to the presentation:

  • highlight privacy and security testing;
  • having development/test servers and how to sanitize the data in the development/test database;
  • more about SQL/XSS Injection attacks;
  • review the video for other topics to add.
Art, Censorship, Web/Tech

Patreon made it easier to troll its users

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Scott Helme is a Information Security Consultant. He has a Patreon account on which he posts about computer security issues and which he uses to take in donations for each blog post.  Recently he found out that Patreon suspended his account:

He could still post and people could still signup to support him, but, taking a page from Paypal, Patreon prevented him from withdrawing any of the money people donated.  Eventually, Patreon completed their investigation and emailed him that he was good to go.  He eventually discovered that:

He estimates that account withdrawals were suspended for between 18 and 47 days.

Account takeovers are a real problem. Had his account been taken over, it would be good if someone couldn’t take his money out and notifying the account that they think it might be hacked could tip the hacker.  In that light, it could make sense to act as they did.

Having multiple other methods of contacting the user would have helped in this case…. well unless email, phone number and Signal were compromised. Patreon would need to prove they are who they say they are, of course. Phishing is a problem as well.

That all said, going from one fraudulent pledge to account takeover seems a stretch.

But this incident reminded me of Violet Blue‘s reporting in Engadget about a troll campaign against women AMSR video creators:

Capitalizing on entrenched and easily exploitable anti-sex policies by internet giant payment processors and a new internet sex panic ushered in by FOSTA, 8chan trolls have started a campaign to mass-report attractive women who make ASMR videos. Listing names of women making these sound-effect videos in a forum thread called “PayPal lowering the hammer on ASMRtits” they’ve declared war by posting links to report pages for PayPal, and called upon fellow haters to get the women kicked off YouTube and Patreon as well.

… and that Patreon just added another method for trolls to harass Patreon’s users.  If all it takes is for one fraudulent looking donation to pass into someone’s account to flip the Account Hacked bit, trolls will use Patreon’s process to suspend a user’s ability to withdraw their money for two to six weeks. That would screw up the life of anyone who makes a living via Patreon.

Patreon has more than a customer service problem.

Pirate Party, Politics, Voting Rights

Vote Today

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I posted this over at the Massachusetts Pirate Party blog.

Election day is today. Polling places are open until 8pm. You can find your polling place at WhereDoIVoteMA.com.

If you believe you are registered, but you aren’t listed on the voter rolls, don’t walk away. The law says you can demand a provisional ballot and get a receipt. Follow up after the election to make sure they count it, but your vote cannot be counted if you didn’t cast it.

When you vote, we ask you to vote yes on Questions 1 and 3 and support any third-party candidate you agree with. You can find out more about the ballot questions below.

As always, we are looking for candidates for the 2019 town and city elections. If you are interested in running, fill out our supporter/candidate form.

More on the ballot questions

Question 1 would set the maximum number of patients per registered nurse which would vary by type of unit and level of care. Our increasingly corporate-controlled health care providers are against it as it would harm their profits. Send them a message that people deserve decent healthcare and vote yes.

Question 3 prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity in places of public accommodation. The legislature already approved it, but some anti-trans bigots believe that our fellow trans citizens and residents do not deserve equality and are using lies and fear mongering to try to get their way. Don’t let them win; vote yes.

On Question 2, we have not decided. Question 2 would create a citizens commission to advance an amendment to the United States Constitution to limit the influence of money in elections and establish that corporations do not have the same rights as human beings. We do not believe that corporations should have the same rights as individuals and I agree that we need to remove the corrupting influence of money in politics. Considering the influence of the rich and corporations on both major parties and on politics, it is pretty clear that once we open up any citizens process to amend the US Constitution, the rich will do their best to rewrite it in ways that enshrine their power and ideas. What is your opinion? Tell us in a comment below.

The Massachusetts Elections Division has more information on the ballot questions.