[cp-global] More cryptoparties in Berlin possible?

Hauke Laging hauke.laging at openpgp-schulungen.de
Fri Aug 30 22:23:21 GMT 2013


Am Fr 30.08.2013, 21:30:59 schrieb jrsusenet-cryptopartyml1305 at yahoo.de:
> Dear all,
> 
> After having received a request from Berlin,

Funny.


> I'm slightly surprised to read
> that there's only a bi-monthly general-topic event. As far as I know Berlin
> has the highest nerd count of all German cities, so I expected they can
> easily handle a monthly cryptoparty.

You are not the only one who expects that. But you are talking to the wrong 
people (of course, it's difficult to reach the right ones). Berlin's events 
have had the biggest media coverage, explcitly stating that we are looking for 
more instructors (and helping them). Berlin's page
https://www.cryptoparty.in/berlin/orga
has been brought down to the lowest joining obstacle I can currently think of. 
On the demonstration on July, 27th (about 2,000 participants) we were present 
with a big poster for www.openpgp-schulungen.de and more than 80 people have 
(actively!) taken out flyers. The weekly event offers the most probably 
highest technical quality of all OpenPGP courses and is backed by a Google 
group, a Facebook group, a Twitter account, and a separate events mailing 
list. The FSFE and CAcert have been involved in the events.

I cannot tell you what the reason for the shockingly low interest of both 
participants and organisers is. I am quite sure the reason is not that the 
organisers of the two series of lectures did bad work. But for the real answer 
you would have to ask those people whom probably both you and us do not have 
good access to.

Interesting timing though. Today the two main organisers and a few other 
people have met and planned to have an event – a "Crypto-Meta-Party" – in 
order to both find out what the reasons are and to increase the number of 
active people. I had that idea yesterday thus the text is "not finished" yet:
http://www.crypto-fuer-alle.de/events/crypto-meta-party/


> Even in the Cologne-Bonn area with
> only a handful of activists we were able to offer up to three parties in
> one week (in different locations, of course)

"Even in the Cologne-Bonn area" – with its only 3.5 million inhabitants... 
(quite the same as Berlin BTW). "three parties in one week" – every week? 
Since mid of July Berlin has ("officially") had one big and eight small 
events. Plus one in Potsdam mainly done by the Berlin organisers.

I just had a look at the Köln-Bonn page. It's telling me nothing at all on the 
cities list page and only one event on the actual page. On September, 20th. No 
information at all. Until then Berlin will have had another three small events 
and one big one. And what do these statistics look like if we start counting 
at the "invention" of Cryptopartys...? You really think that Berlin needs help 
from Köln-Bonn?

Some time ago I added template pages for six of Germanys 15 biggest cities. 
With NO result at all up to now. Those cities add up to over two million 
people. And a lot of smaller but still big cities are missing completely.


> - during summer vacation, so I
> assume in Berlin there should be more than enough participants for a
> monthly event.
> 
> What do you think?

I think: If whoever comes to Berlin in order to do a Cryptoparty then the 
Berlin organisers will warmly welcome them, announce that event on their 
mailing lists, attend to it and, of course, offer them to help them generate 
good OpenPGP keys.

And nonetheless that would obviously be a more than stupid idea.


Hauke
-- 
☺ http://www.openpgp-schulungen.de/
XMPP (mit OTR): gnupg-support at jabber.org
CF51 CB88 7D9A B184 AD50  21F4 DA6B 2836 5A21 B2D0
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 572 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://cryptoparty.is/pipermail/global/attachments/20130831/e4d973ed/attachment.sig>


More information about the global mailing list