Guardy Guardy Guardy

Wired’s new Guide to Digital Security is an excellent addition to the genre of simple-to-follow how-tos for reducing the likelihood that you’ll be victimized by computer-assisted crime and harassment, and that if you are, the harms will be mitigated.

Like Motherboard’s guide, it is formatted as a series of short articles; like EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense kit, it is structured around different kinds of threats, with separate paths for “civilians,” “public figures” and “spies.”

Some of the standout articles:

* Smartphone Security 101: The Steps That Matter Most in which Lily Hay Newman offers “quick and easy steps to make big improvements to your mobile security”;

* How to Encrypt All of the Things, where Andy Greenberg shows you “how to keep snoopers out of every facet of your digital life, whether it’s video chat or your PC’s hard drive”;

* How to Sweep For Bugs and Hidden Cameras, where Lily Hay Newman basically shows that unless you’re really technologically sophisticated, this is very, very hard;

* and What to Do if You’re Being Doxed, where Newman interviews the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Eva Galperin for really practical advice on what could easily be a nightmare scenario.

Electronic security is a team sport: that’s why the Cybersecurity Campaign Playbook has a chapter for how family members of political campaigners should armor themselves against being used as a means to get at their relatives.

This is the ideal season for you to help you up your family’s security game. When you go home for the holidays, think about how you can install software, change defaults, and teach your family good practices to help you – and them – stay safe.

If this interests you, read EFF’s Security Education Companion, which teaches you how to be an effective communicator of security precepts.

The WIRED Guide to Digital Security

THE ‘KEATON ST. JAMES IS ABSOLUTELY ENAMORED WITH ANGELS’ POETRY MASTERPOST

i’ve arranged the poems are in chronological order and included first lines, since there are so many pieces

texts between angels trying to live as mortals - “what is more blessed than watching / birds sing in the trees?”

trumpet concerto in e-flat major - “the saints come into heaven dizzy and scorchmark-darkened”

“one day the stars open up like flower buds”

fallen angel - “raphael comes to you in the middle of the night and says, there is not much time left, brother”

half-angel jazz - “out in the hall, the nephilim dance in their shiny church shoes”

“flowers bloom every place angels touch”

metamorphology - “in the dream i get new wings made with copper bones / and smoke feathers”

lake angels - “the angels arrive when the dawn lake-fog does”

guardian - “a six-winged angel leans against / the tennis court fence”

descend - “and the angels descend / like spears of light”

salvation - “angels ain’t just flesh & feather”

waiting - “i feel closest to the angels / when i’m in the middle / of a thunderstorm”

dictionary poem xlii - “in the beginning the lord said, let there be cosmos”

“yes you are like an angel”

fallen angel experiencing their first snow - “you first experience it while walking / back to your apartment with a paper bag / of mulled wine”

looking for god on channel 35 - “your body made of night, snow, humming”

angels and the theatre - “michael with his silver gunsmoke / bones fills up three box seats”

you meet an angel in a laundromat - “the angel sits on top / of one of the washers, kicking / their not-feet in time / to the laundromat muzak”

love that makes bones melt - “if the moon burns / like a saint”

triptych on guardian angels - “his silver-feathered hands rest / palms down on the table”

queer angels staring at the outside of heaven’s gates - “we make our own rules here. we with our / river mud wings”

angels who love humans - “as i walked down the canned & dried foods aisle, / i noticed an angel with hummingbird-feather / wings”

Poem for the one hundredth anniversary of Wilfred Owen’s death by Keaton St. James

(patreon)

…he did all right for that one minute.

This looks like it should be gracing the cover of a romance novel.