Othernet

A Critical Engineering workshop led by Danja Vasiliev

In today's society, data privacy and infrastructural centralisation have become primary concerns. Existing Internet governance, laws and structures are being challenged. With increasing distrust in 'The Cloud' comes a broad call for publicly-owned network infrastructures; infrastructures that would give users greater control over their personal communication, data and identities.

This 2-day workshop walks participants through the process of setting up a self-owned server that they control - scalable to hundreds or thousands of users.

Those interested in serving from home can bring in a laptop/PC/RPi to wipe and re-purpose as a low-bandwidth server on the Internet. Others wanting a high-traffic, media-rich solution will be encouraged to choose and register a geographically-local VPS server in class such that they can be guided through a complete install, customised to each participant's needs.

Good server-side security practices are covered, from disk-encryption to password-management and firewalling. The basics of the UNIX command line are also taught such that participants can securely log into their server and administer it regardless of their physical location.

It takes just one person in a community to give the gift of publicly-owned, localised and decentralised infrastructure - to take the power back.

If you’re interested please send an email to talk@theinfluencers.org (subject: “Othernet application”)
and include a short description of who you are and why you would like to participate.

Applications will be chosen according to criteria such as personal motivation and cultural and gender balance.