The nondescript brick building along an industrial stretch of Elston Avenue seems just the sort of unremarkable spot where a group of privacy advocates would congregate. Inside Pumping Station: One, an Avondale “hackerspace” where about 200 tech-obsessed tinkerers pool money to share tools and work space, the 50 seats in a second-floor room are filling fast. Surrounded by wall shelving brimming with parts for computers and various other electronic doodads, most in the crowd stare into the screens of bestickered laptops as they wait for a presentation to begin. People wear T-shirts promoting organizations dedicated to open-source software, such as Mozilla or Linux. A woman with a British accent cracks a tallboy of Colt 45. A man in a vest-and-tie ensemble too formal for the occasion puffs on an e-cigarette until someone informs him of Chicago’s indoor ban. Others introduce themselves to their neighbors, asking gently, as if not wanting to pry, “So, what brought you here?”
“I’d look for the cloak and staff,” a deskmate replies. The nerdy quip elicits laughter from everyone within earshot.
The notion of government spies ogling the whole of the Internet’s racy imagery is as disturbing as it is amusing, but crypto partygoers say it isn’t a central motivation behind shielding their digital communications. Software developer Adriana Castanela, for one, came to the event to learn how cryptography can help her better protect the privacy of clients and their customers. “There’s a lot of information that gets passed that you really don’t want people to get a hold of,” she says of the development process. And since larger businesses that have more customers tend to see security as a greater priority, she says, crypto training might actually help her secure more lucrative work.
“Snowden stood in front of the whiteboard and gave a 30- to 40-minute introduction to TrueCrypt, an open-source full-disk encryption tool. He walked through the steps to encrypt a hard drive or a USB stick,” Wired contributing editor Kevin Poulsen reported last year. His main source was technologist and writer Runa Sandvik, Snowden’s copresenter at the event, but Wolf also makes an appearance in the piece: “I kind of hope, secretly,” she tells Poulsen, “that the crypto party offered Snowden an outlet to think about what he was already beginning to plan to do.”
According to the Pew study cited above, 54 percent of American adults think “it would be ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ difficult to find tools and strategies that would help them be more private online and in using their cell phones.” But after troubleshooting with more experienced users at the crypto party, the task wasn’t so tough for Corral. As the event begins winding down, the teen is proud to report that her computer is now outfitted with GPG e-mail encryption. “I’m not saying it was a piece of cake, that I could do this in my sleep,” she says. “It was an easy process because I was guided through it.”
Sat 4/25, 2-5 PM South Side Hackerspace 2233 S. Throop, #214 RSVP at meetup.com/sshchicago Free
