A couple of weeks ago I announced that a cryptoparty would be held at HacDC in the first half of October. If you haven't been watching hashtags on Twitter, a cryptoparty is a party where people get together to eat pizza and learn how to install and use strong cryptographic software (like GnuPG and Truecrypt) safely. These parties began in Australia as a result of the government there passing a bill which requires mandatory recording and storage of all net.traffic, just in case someone living in Australia is doing anything illegal. Almost immediately cryptoparties began springing up around the …

Heads-up for the Maryland contingent: Author Christopher Penczak will be doing a couple of classes at Spark of Spirit (9937 Rhode Island Avenue; College Park, Maryland 20740; phone number301-345-1486) on 13, 14, and 15 April, 2007.