Privacy through Technology: A Hands-On

Presented at HOPE Number Six (2006), July 23, 2006, noon (60 minutes)

Until recently, using cryptography to protect your privacy when using the web, email, or instant messenger while connecting your laptop all over the world from very insecure and untrusted networks was a daunting task that most people could never set up. For those who could, it proved impractical to use over a longer period of time. Fortunately, things have changed a lot in the last year. But the notion that cryptography is too difficult to use is still a widespread belief.

In this presentation, Aldert and Paul will demonstrate how easy it is these days to use cryptography. They will bring a Windows and an OSX laptop, and demonstrate how to set up encryption tools from scratch. After the presentation, a slide show version of their presentation will be available as download for everyone to take home.

Topics will include how to secure email using GPG with Thunderbird and Mail.app, how to protect IM traffic using OTR with a variety of IM clients such as Gaim, Adium, iChat, Trillian, or other clients using the OTR proxy, how to encrypt your browsing using Tor and Privoxy, how to build an L2TP VPN to encrypt all your traffic while browsing at Starbucks by using your home DSL, how to encrypt your VoIP calls using Gizmo and Zfone, how to enable WPA/WEP security on your wireless network, and how to use an encrypted hard disk using FileVault or Windows software. Finally, they hope to be able to show you the first IPsec encrypted WiFi mobile phone.

This presentation will be a hands-on training. That means no slide shows on how things work in theory, but demonstrating live to you that it only takes a few minutes to set up the cryptographic tools to protect your privacy.


Presenters:

  • Paul Wouters
    Paul Wouters has been involved with Linux networking and security since he cofounded the Dutch ISP Xtended Internet back in 1996, where he started working with FreeS/WAN IPsec in 1999 and with DNSSEC for the .nl domain in 2001. He has presented papers at BlackHat, SANS, DefCon, CCC, and many other conferences around the world. He designed and deployed the then largest outdoor WiFi deployment at HAL in The Netherlands in 2001. Paul cofounded Xelerance in 2003, focusing on IPsec, DNSSEC, Radius, as well as delivering trainings. He published his first book this year on running IPsec on Linux and Windows/OSX entitled Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks with Openswan. In his spare time, Paul maintains various Fedora Extras packages and the Windows port of the Off-the-Record plugin for Windows.
  • Aldert Hazenberg
    Aldert Hazenberg started in 1993 with networking and security for an international software company and evolved into project management and liaison officer between development, marketing, sales departments, and enterprise customers at an international IT services organization. He has worked for and at several international computer related congresses such as HAL2001 and the CCC. His role was coordinator, team leader, and inspirator. Aldert is involved in various activities (quality assurance, usability testing, and user interface improvements) in the areas of wireless (OLSR, meshing software), encryption (OTR, VPN), and several other (open source and commercial) software projects. He is currently responsible for launching a streaming and download platform that utilizes payment by phone instead of credit cards.

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