Putin’s brutal aggression in Ukraine has put cyberwar back in headlines. Recently, Carey Parker, host of the Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons podcast, reached out to us at Tech Learning Collective to talk through some of the issues the war in Ukraine has once again raised for laypeople who may be newly concerned about the reliance we’ve developed as a society on digital infrastructures. So, late last month, we sat down with him for another conversation about what anyone and, arguably, everyone could be doing not only to keep themselves safer online, but also prepared in the event of an escalation of hostilities in a cyber theater, rapid shifts in political climates, or even just natural disasters that affect telecommunication abilities.
Technology, taught collectively.
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Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons: Luck Favors the Prepared
The Enragés: Next Time the Pendulum Swings, Part 2
Earlier this month, we republished part 1 of our interview with The Enragés, where we discussed our blog post, Imagining an Optimistic Cyber-Future. In this post, you’ll find the conclusion of our conversation along with a (somewhat rushed) transcript of the same. Here, we touch on ways in which capitalism has constrained people’s telecommunication abilities, we describe some of our inspiration from earlier political thinkers, and we even answer a couple of listener questions.
Testimonials
“helped demystify how computers are set up”
As a Data Scientist coming from statistics instead of computer science, Tech Learning Collective’s NET101 course and their Clearing Away the Clouds: How Computer Networks, Servers, and the Internet Work workshop helped demystify how computers are set up and talk to one another. The concepts were broken down into easy to digest bite sized pieces allowing the unfamiliar language to become new and accessible vocabulary, which upon reflection seemed to be the biggest hurdle in my understanding. Thanks so much!
“wonderful workshops […] eminently practical and affordable”
Read what
had to say about
Tech Learning Collective
on
February 22, 2021:
I first learned of the Tech Learning Collective at a privacy conference in late 2020. I struck up a conversation with one of its representatives and ended up taking one of their wonderful workshops in January. TLC offers some top-notch courses on computers with a focus on cybersecurity. Unlike college courses or cybersecurity certification courses, TLC offers eminently practical and affordable content, focused squarely on doing. It’s like the difference between taking a karate class to earn colored belts and taking a personal self defense class to actually protect yourself. But it’s also much more than that, and hard to describe.
“facilitates direct community participation [in] providing for the community and neighborhood's own needs.”
Read what
had to say about
Tech Learning Collective
on
December 5, 2019:
In collaboration with artists, hacklabs, makerspaces, independent bookstores, and local businesses, Tech Learning Collective further facilitates direct community participation in the construction and operation of autonomous digital infrastructure services focused on providing for the community and neighborhood’s own needs. […Through] partnerships with […] community organizations, Tech Learning Collective students can build on their classroom or workshop trainings by getting involved in real-life projects that require skills such as network and site reliability engineering, development operations, and computer security.
[…]
We are excited to support their work as they expand their mission around New York City.
“just the right combination of informative and challenging”
I really enjoyed the Clearing Away the Clouds class on networking. I know only a tiny bit about networking but am trying to learn more to be a responsible and safe digital citizen. This class was just the right combination of informative and challenging. The instructutor definitely dove into some really complicated ideas but always took the time to go back and make sure that we understood.