CryptoParty
A Crypto Party called a meeting of people with the aim to teach each other basic encryption and obfuscation techniques (eg goal, VPN, OpenPGP, Disk Encryption and OTR). Crypto parties are public and non-commercial, with a focus on open source software.
Formation
Predecessor of Crypto party is the key signing party. This came on to promote the spread of PGP and build by mutual signing PGP keys a Web of Trust.
As successors of the Cypher Punks the concept in late August 2012, in a casual Twitter conversation between an Australian privacy activist devised ( with the pseudonym Asher Wolf) and computer security experts after the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill passed in 2011 by the Australian Parliament and the proposal of a two-year retention Act was made.
The DIY movement was immediately viral, with a dozen independently organized Crypto Parties in Australia, Germany, the USA and the UK. Soon, many more were held in Chile, the Netherlands, Hawaii, Asia, etc.. The Tor use in Australia increased significantly and permanently and the Crypto party in London with 130 in attendance had to be moved from London Hackspace to the Google campus. Worldwide until mid-2013, over 100 Crypto parties, some of them regularly held.
Reception
Crypto Party Handbook
The first draft of the 442 -page Crypto Party Handbooks (available in bound form ) was written with the book sprint method in just three days and released on 10 April 2012, under the CC -BY -SA- 3.0 license. It is constantly being improved.
Current initiatives
On cryptoparty.in the world held Crypto parties are listed. There initiatives found in about 30 German cities, but also those in Graz, Innsbruck and Vienna. For Austria, there is also a separate platform cryptoparty.at.