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The Technological Freedom Forum

What is The Technological Freedom Forum?

The Technological Freedom Forum is an upcoming student organization at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. We stand against technological oppression, mass surveillance, and enshittification. The purpose of The Forum is dual: to reveal how elites abuse technology to erode individual autonomy, and to demonstrate how anyone—including you—can resist this technological encroachment. We aim to illuminate paths of egress away from parasitic Big Tech ecosystems and equip all with the knowledge of how to begin the journey toward technological freedom.

These are some preliminary ideas that we are considering:

General activities

  • Guest speakers on topics related to technological freedom
  • Methods for full-stack privacy and anonymity on the internet
  • Simple things you can do to begin your departure from Big Tech
  • Building sovereign smarthomes and intranets, known as homelabbing
  • Open source intelligence (OSINT): why it’s relevant, and techniques
  • How to install open source programs: compilation, packaging, distribution
  • Basics of website hosting, without reliance on cloud services (e.g. Google Sites or Squarespace)
  • The Domain Name System; how to get your own domain name (e.g. abc.com), and beyond DNS: I2P naming service and Tor onion addresses
  • Raising awareness of and demonstrating libre, corporate-free, private, distributed, and censorship-resistant communication networks and protocols, including XMPP, Matrix, Nostr, SimpleX, Tor, I2P, AmneziaWG, pluggable transports, Briar, Meshtastic, and Reticulum.
  • Open discussions, topics could be
    • showcases of homelab/personal cloud setups
    • sharing methods for digital privacy and independence from Big Tech
    • exchanging with one another niche free software that shows potential or deserves more recognition

Privacy-related activities

  • Hardening Firefox for privacy and security using proxies, DNS over HTTPS/TLS/QUIC, extensions, about:config, and user.js
  • Cellular privacy: revealing tracking mechanisms, which providers to stay away from, and available privacy-respecting telephony options
  • Revealing specific tracking mechanisms and how to avoid or mitigate them:
    • Wi-Fi sensing
    • Bluetooth beacons
    • Ultrasound tracking beacons
    • Automatic Content Recognition (ACR)
    • Cell site simulators (stingrays)
    • Biometrics
      • Facial recognition
      • Gait analysis
      • Heartbeat analysis
      • Voice print analysis

Software showcase/tutorial activities

Entry level

  • SearXNG, an internet metasearch engine without tracking
  • Pi-hole, an easy-to-install network-wide adblocker
  • F-Droid, Accrescent, Obtainium, Zapstore: open source app stores for Android
    • Nothing like this for iOS because Apple decided we don’t have the freedom to install software outside of their App Store
  • The Fediverse: a social media network of networks where the users control their data, and can migrate across different providers or even run their own server
  • VPN tierlist: debunking marketing lies, and which VPNs to actually use
  • How to run servers for video games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Factorio
    • Maybe we will run a Factorio server for WPI if/when we have the time and resources?
    • Maybe we will run a scribble.rs server, a self-hosted alternative to skribbl.io?

Mid level

  • postmarketOS, a Linux distribution targeting mobile phones
  • LineageOS, GrapheneOS, crDroid, and /e/: open source Android distributions (still deciding on which one would be best)
  • XMPP, Matrix, and Nostr: decentralized communication protocols resistant to censorship and spying, and how to start using them
  • Tor and I2P: encrypted internet overlay networks, and how to start using them through Tor Browser and I2P router
  • uBlock Origin dynamic filtering tutorial
  • how to set up infrastructure for local AI models

Advanced

  • OpenWRT, an open source operating system for routers
  • Reticulum, a censorship-resistant, decentralized, and encrypted network independent of the internet
  • How to self-host…

Other events

  • Letter writing workshop: how to get in touch with state representatives, senators, local government officials, and how to write in a way that gets their attention.

We’re also considering collaborations with other student organizations.