Joshua Kopstein
Joshua Kopstein is a journalist and researcher focused on the study and circumvention of government and corporate surveillance systems. He has been published in outlets including Al Jazeera, The New Yorker, VICE, Ars Technica, and The Verge. He also authors Lawful Intercept, a newsletter about surveillance, technology, privacy, and power.
Presenting
Workshop: There Is No Cloud: Dumping Dropbox to Create a Personal Anti-Cloud For Cheap
From the NSA revelations to hacked celebrity photo scandals, we've been given countless reasons to stop trusting centralized data storage services such as iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox. It's now common knowledge that by using these services we surrender control of our data to profit-driven corporations, leaving it at the mercy of data-mining advertisers, government spooks, and malicious hackers. Thanks to arcane Terms of Service agreements and automatic opt-in schemes, often this private data is being transmitted and stored elsewhere without our knowledge or consent.
The fact that we still use these services despite this knowledge isn't a surrender: It's simply proof that telling everyone to “stop using the cloud” isn't working, and never will. What we need instead is to introduce decentralized cloud alternatives that preserve our privacy and sovereignty while providing the same usability and convenience – with little or no compromise.
In this workshop, participants will learn how to use a Raspberry Pi to create a personal “anti-cloud” that safely and seamlessly syncs files between all of their devices, using peer-to-peer apps like BitTorrent Sync instead of corporate-controlled file lockers. From there, we will take this private network to the next level by exploring ArkOS, a more ambitious platform designed to keep all of your data “in-house,” where it belongs.
This method is far from perfect, and various drawbacks, caveats, and alternatives will be noted along the way. But it is a relatively painless and elegant solution that can be achieved with almost no monetary costs and little technical know-how. More importantly, by exploring the possibility space for cloud alternatives, we can help bring the decentralized, surveillance-resistant Internet one step closer to reality.
Basic familiarity with the command line is recommended, but not mandatory. This workshop is recommended for beginners with little/no knowledge of computer networking as well as more advanced users hoping to learn about cloud file storage alternatives.
Materials
Participants must bring their own laptops (PC, Mac, or Linux). A limited amount of Raspberry Pis will be provided for participants to borrow if they can't bring their own hardware, although people are encouraged to purchase kits to use in class.
