A Cryptoparty for Anthropologists: Hands-on Workshop to Learn How and Why to Secure Our Data

September 8, 9 - 12 am

Sylvain Besençon, UNIFR

Sylvain Besençon, UNIFR

Estelle Pannatier

"Yes, I'm paranoid - but am I paranoid enough?" (David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest) This hands-on workshop intends to bring into focus some constructive and necessary paranoia about information security. It aims at learning how to take care of our data. We, anthropologists, have learned how to produce a big deal of data on (sometimes vulnerable) people and how to make with them descriptions as thick as possible. It is certainly what makes ethnographic fieldwork so remarkable. Yet, how to secure these data from being lost, stolen or used by illegitimate parties remains absent from fieldwork training. While we often promise our research participants to handle their information with confidentiality, we often minimize the risk of losing control over our own data. The workshop intends to bring some practical insights on how to store and protect our data. We will learn about secure Internet browsing and communication, password management, encryption tools and backups utilities. At the end of the workshop, participants might have a few apps installed on their computers (and maybe also on their phones) that will hopefully help them to take care of their data. The workshop is organized in three parts: the first one would be a short introduction on the actual risks of privacy breach in various scenarios and we shall learn how to assess potential threats. The second and third parts would be two hands-on workshops organized around the following topics: What are the basic digital selfdefense tools that we can use to start protecting our research participants and ourselves against passive and active surveillance? And where and how shall we store safely our ethnographic data? This workshop is open to everyone. Participants don't need to know anything on information security. They just need a dose of curiosity and good will to change some of their digital habits

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