hi Interesting discussion about the handbook.
Its great to see so much energy around this book. I read through all the posts here and actually this conversation lead me to Liberation Tech which I didn't know of before so happy to find it. I agree with prior comments that if there are any issues with the accuracy or approach of the book as Seth (whose opinion is obviously one to take note of and articulated specific points) and Jake (who also is deeply respected in this area) have stated then the appropriate response is to improve the book. Seth contributed to 2 earlier versions of much of this content through "How to bypass Internet Censorship" Book Sprints in New York and Berlin (available in 7 languages) and is well versed in how that book was made and the intention to keep it open and improve it. The same is true of this book. Doing this now is going to be a little more difficult than it was 24 hours ago since now there are 4 'raw sources' for the book where improvements can be made. There is one partly copied version in the cryptoparty wiki, one version in the original Booktype installation, one full copy in www.booki.cc (also booktype and covered with https) and now a copy in github. While on one level this is good (and quite amazing to see) I can also see lots of split efforts which I think is not optimum. It would be good if there was one spot. Additionally I think that the energy of this list to fork to github is really a mistake - github is not usable by people you may wish to attract to the book. Since the book is aimed at the cryptoparty crowd, which is largely newbies, you need (in addition to crypto experts) non-crypto experts improving the book. You need general writers and illustrators and proof readers etc to put in their contribution and make this book better - more readable and understandable for them. They will not use github to make contributions. This also includes translators of course. So, I would recommend using the www.booki.cc installation since the book was forked there by one of the people that started the book (and I believe that group wishes to put their energy there) and it is a free software (AGPL) platform, it uses https, and it is owned and managed by me and not a commercial company that makes proprietary software as github is. I have no intention in looking at or distributing IPs, I dont even keep stats on the site. There are no advertisements on the site so no hassle or security leakage there either. Also I have made lengthy efforts in the past to protect peoples identities regarding this exact content (and other content). I am not saying that its perfect - I am not a security expert and would welcome any support making the www.booki.cc site more secure - however I feel that www.booki.cc is possibly a *lot* better than github for all of the above reasons. That URL is : https://www.booki.cc/cryptoparty-handbook/_info/ The additional advantage of using this repository is that the content can then easily be ported to FLOSS Manuals where the books "How to Bypass Internet Censorship" and "Basic Internet Security" are both housed. I mention this because the platform is federated so it is easy to grab updates from www.booki.cc and update those two books on FLOSS Manuals using built in 'federated' import tools. Additionally there will be more sprints on this subject matter facilitated by FLOSS Manuals using the same platform so the cryptoparty handbook can also easily benefit from these additions etc. Lastly, this platform outputs to ebooks and book formatted PDF immediately so its no hassle to get whatever formats you want (including odt etc). The book formatted PDF produced for the lulu and hosted on the site is an output of the new (100% open source) beta renderer for this platform and it looks pretty good (for those interested we are also about to implement JS version of the Knuth and Plass line breaking algorithm into the output engine (while I'm sure thats not going to make TeX geeks 100% happy it does do a pretty neat job - see http://www.bramstein.com/projects/typeset/). Anyways, congrats to the cryptoparty handbook contributors, they have done a great job and it is great to see so much enthusiasm to discuss and (hopefully also) improve the book. Its a community asset and I hope that it continues to be improved in efforts than can feed into each other. adam -- -- Adam Hyde Founder, FLOSS Manuals Project Manager, Booki Book Sprint Facilitator mobile :+ 49 177 4935122 identi.ca : @eset booki.flossmanuals.net : @adam http://www.flossmanuals.net http://www.booki.cc http://www.booksprints.net -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
