Security Station For Marginalized Youth

[mozfest-bot]

[ UUID ] 80140191-3bd3-4641-9278-29e7f97d6a41

[ Session Name ] Security Station For Marginalized Youth [ Primary Space ] Youth Zone [ Secondary Space ] Privacy and Security

[ Submitter's Name ] Daniel Alexander

[ Additional facilitators ] Blue McArthur,Liz Sands

What will happen in your session?

In this session, we'll be facilitating privacy and security checkups for marginalized youth. Each participant will fill out a few short questions to help us determine the help they need, and then we'll discuss their individual threat model, their security habits, and ways they can make themself safer online.

What is the goal or outcome of your session?

After this session, participants will understand their threat model as it relates to their axes of marginalization, and they will have the tools they need to protect their privacy online -- whether those tools are software like Signal and Tor, Linux livedisks (which we will create for them), or the ability to set up and manage private social media accounts.

If your session requires additional materials or electronic equipment, please outline your needs.

We'd like to have a small document shredder so we can properly dispose of the intake questions from the participants.

Time needed

All weekend, as an installation, exhibit or drop-in session

[emrysgreen]

Hi, Will this session be led or co-led by young people too?

[daneelcayce]

@emrysgreen hiya! Daniel here (forgot I had a github, whoops!)

Blue and I are both in our early 20s. Liz is a bit older than us, but has the most experience running privacy/security events.

[emrysgreen]

OK perfect, thankyou

[emrysgreen]

Hi @rdanieloliver - we're currently passing you to your second choice for consideration to see if they can accommodate you.

[arroway]

Hi @rdanieloliver, thanks for your proposal. i've got some questions to understand a bit more your session. Could you explain what you mean by "marginalized youth" (it seems very broad and cover a lot of different situations)? What type of questions do you intend to ask: will it be about concerns regarding security & privacy, or more about the private situations of people...? From your description, I get the impression that interactions will be mostly 1 to 1 when discussing individual threat models: what kind of group dynamics do you intend to foster? What happens if participants feel uncomfortable sharing it with the group?

[bunnybooboo]

Got some good news @rdanieloliver!! Your proposal has advanced to the next phase of our selection process for the Privacy and Security space.

On to the stipends. We simply don't have enough to go around, and that's even with just one estimated per proposal. If we were unable to give you access to a stipend, might there be another method of funding you might have access to?

[daneelcayce]

Hi @arroway!

Sorry it's taken so long to reply -- I was away on a family holiday (without internet access) when you sent the question, and the email got buried in my inbox.

Marginalized youth is a broad category -- young people who are queer, disabled, neurodivergent, people of color, religious minorities, etc. Other people may find benefits from the session as well, of course -- but as two of us are marginalized youth, we thought that would be a good place to focus.

The sessions will mostly be 1-to-1 (although if there is a large influx of people, we may give a more general privacy session, applicable to the majority, and then ask that anyone who feels that their threat model necessitates a 1-to-1 session stick around.

In the 1-to-1 sessions, we're going to ask the participants what privacy and security concerns they have in broad terms, and they can give us as much or as little detail as they're comfortable giving.

As an example, we might privately ask whether a participant's concern comes from systemic surveillance or from a specific person. In either case, we would recommend use of Signal; in the latter case, we would recommend Signal with messages set to auto-destruct after a short time -- but we wouldn't know who the person in question is, if the participant isn't comfortable telling us.

Hope that helps!

[daneelcayce]

Hi @bunnybooboo!

We don't have access to other funding, that I know of -- but for clarity, two of us are from the States and one of us is from the UK, so the third travel stipend would be considerably less (and they're willing to pay for their own flights if necessary). The three of us have previously agreed to share a room and double up on a bed, since funding's tight and we get along fine. :)

[bunnybooboo]

Hey that's awesome. I hope you and the family had an excellent break? Thank so much for getting back to us @rdanieloliver. This is indeed helpful information on a number of levels.

In my early stipend considerations I was actually think of just a single person for each application. Over the last weeks I've seen some teams hoping for as many as 8 people to be included as part of a facilitation team all covered by stipends! We're still spinning a lot of plates in our considerations, and a broad spread of access to stipends throughout the community is a vital component.

We've now got just under 2 weeks to finalise our decisions. Some of the P&S team have been unavailable this week, so expect to hear more news real soon.

[bunnybooboo]

FINALLY I'm able to get back to you @rdanieloliver, I know right!?

I really like this proposal. I also absolutely loved your responses above. It fills me excitement to read someone so switched on to Privacy and Security. You're undoubtedly a strong part of our peer network. Great work!

It meant a lot to me to personally try everything I could to get your team as far as possible through our selection process. Unfortunately, we've not been able to bring you to Mozfest this year.

You got through FIVE phases of selection, and that's a credit to your very strong application. Oh yeah we also collectively marked this as Outstanding, so it wasn't just me being a fan here. We'd like to thank you for taking the time to send in your application, and your patience while we've been going through this curation process.

[mozfest-bot]

Thank you for taking the time to submit a session to MozFest. Due to the high level of submissions, we’re unable to accept all proposals and unfortunately, your session was not part of the final group.

Thank you for taking the time to submit and we will follow up on email very soon.