ITP Camp 2023

PGParty Like it's 1999! Using 1990s Encryption to Prepare for a 2029 Dystopia

Date: June 20, 2023 5-6:30pm


Format: Hybrid (In-person with online access)


Tags: #security #encryption #privacy


The year is 2029. Following the BTS Army/Swifty fan war of 2028 that choked up most of the world's internet traffic, the US government followed through on its threat to ban Tiktok, creating a court precedent for banning anything they found even slightly annoying in app stores, including Signal.

After the ban, former Signal users consider their alternatives: Cereal decoder rings, hiding microdots in dog parks, writing in Elvish; all resulting in failure. From the shadows, an old man from Colorado appears, holding a vintage Yubikey and equally aged Thinkpad still bearing a worn IBM logo.

"Hi I'm Phil. This is why centralization is bad, crypto doesn't need app stores. There are alternatives!"

"Crypto? Like blockchain?"

"No."

Come to this session to learn about Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), a 1990s encryption standard you can use to encrypt messages like emails and faxes. Bring a Windows, Mac, or Linux laptop to follow along on installing it and generating your own PGP encryption key!