Welcome to the organising page for the Durham CryptoParty.

Book your place now ← This will not record anything about you other than what you write in the form. You can use a pseudonym.

Please book yourself a place if you intend to be there on the night in
any capacity, so we don’t overcrowd the room. If we get fully booked
we’ll think about putting on another event for anyone who we couldnt’
fit in.

There is no charge for attendance. We have been given free use of a room
on the understanding that we will be buying drinks at the bar which is
open from 7.30PM.

Attend this CryptoParty to learn and teach how to use basic cryptography tools. A CryptoParty is free, public and fun. People bring their computers, mobile devices, and a willingness to learn! CryptoParty
is a decentralized, global initiative to introduce the most basic
cryptography software and the fundamental concepts of their operation to the general public, such as the Tor anonymity network, public key
encryption (PGP/GPG), and OTR (Off The Record messaging).

CryptoParties are free to attend, public, and commercially and politically non-aligned. (see the guiding principles)

Anyone who wants to learn about, or share their skills about, basic
cryptographic software. That means the kind of program that can keep
your personal information private, if you use it properly. So if you
don’t like the idea of strangers looking at your personal things, and
you use a computer, this is for you.

The event has been instigated by some members of Durham Linux User
Group, however the event is open to users of all computer systems. We’re
offering this event as a service to the community, because we think
it’s important that people should be able to protect their privacy (it
is a human right, after all) and because it’s fun 🙂

We are also reaching out to some other local groups in the hope of
involving them. If you have knowledge of a non-*nix system and are able
to help people use simple encryption tools on it, please make yourself
known (use an alias if you like) in the volunteers section below.

This website you’re reading now has loads of useful information on it. Have a look at the documentation
and see what you make of it. If you find it easy, you can come along
and help people who didn’t find it easy. We can all learn something from
each other.

We will be holding a keysigning session at the cryptoparty. This helps
us to build a Web of Trust both amongst ourselves and with the wider
online community.

To take part you will need to:

• before the signing (preferably before the party to streamline things on the night)
  • generate a private PGP/GPG key – if you do not already have one.
  • send the key fingerprint to richm+keysigning@oldelvet.org.uk. The following GPG command outputs the information that you need to send.
    • gpg –fingerprint <Your_Key_ID>
• At the party.
  • be prepared to identify yourself/your key.
    • Typically we suggest that you bring yourself and two forms of photo ID.
    • However some people choose to only
      prove that they have control of a key and not to tie this to a
      government recognised form of ID.
    • See the examples under Keysigning policy for what options are generally used.
  • verify the ID of others at the party. We will be using the list based method. Copies of the keysigning list will be available at the party.
• After the party.
  • sign the keys of the people whose ID you verified.

• Keysigning party howto
• Email encryption
• OpenPGP best practices
• Example of hardened gpg.conf

Nobody is in charge so dive in and make it happen. You see those little
gray words that say “Edit” to the right of this? They are talking to you
kid. Also the thing at the top left that say “Edit this page” is also
talking to you, the difference is that does the whole page at once.

Go on… if you don’t do it, maybe no one will… and if you’re not sure
just edit the Q&A section and put in a question then check back
later to see if someone answered it.

This is what we’ve got:

• Venue: Classroom at the Durham Amateur Rowing Club
• Time: 7.30pm to 10.30pm
• Desk space and chairs for up to 30 people
• Plenty of power sockets
• wifi
• projector with VGA input if anyone wants to show stuff to the group
• “break out” space in the bar
• parking for cars and bikes. and boats for that matter.
• level access for those with mobility problems
• Real ale

Can you help us source these?

• Snacks
• Signage
• Some old, cheapo USB flash
  drives to give away TAILS on. Anyone know where we can get some, e.g.
  some promotional ones that got overproduced? [TAILS needs at least
  4GB, or 8GB with a persistent volume, so old drives are likely to be
  far too small. We could easily set up TAILS for anyone who brings along
  their own USB drive.]
• Relevant campaign stickers

All of us should be inviting people and groups, however if one of those
people gets multiple invitations it would make us look like some dodgy
spam-lords. Which we aint. So record here when you invite someone. If
you’re thinking of inviting some people, check here first to see if
they’ve already been invited.

• Durham Uni computer society
• Durham Uni pro-bono lawyers
• DU librarians
• Durham student union activities
• DSU LGBTA
• Durham Palestine Educational Trust
• Durham Free Software Skillshare project
• Transition Durham
• Open Rights Group

I think the main plan is to hang loose and show each other cool stuff.
However if lots of people turn up needing a basic overview of a topic,
it would be cool to have a 5-minute presentation prepared, would it not?
There are slides already on this wiki for us to use. Could folks nominate themselves here / add your offer to the list, or take one of these:

please add Q/A depending on what you have

Q Will the cakes be stored in a CryptoPantry?

A No, nor will they contain keys.

Q I have a 3D printer which can dispense solder paste. Can I use it to render my key into icing on top of a cake?

A You should definitely do that. Use a clean syringe though.

Q Who should attend?

A Anyone who wants to learn or share how to use simple encryption tools

Q What should I bring?

A Bring a portable computing device if you want help to use it