Prefigurative Community Building (Part 38)
Digital Security Pods: Power With in the Age of Surveillance
We live in a time when our digital lives are tracked, harvested, and sold. Algorithms influence what we see and how we move. Governments and corporations collect our personal data, sometimes to manipulate, sometimes to punish. For many, especially activists, dissidents, migrants, and marginalized communities, surveillance isn't abstract. It's a daily threat.
Digital security isn't just about protecting your own devices. It's about protecting each other. That’s where Digital Security Pods come in. They're not top-down solutions. They’re small groups of people who support each other in practicing better digital hygiene, sharing tools, and helping each other stay safe.
This is Power With in action. Nobody’s in charge. Nobody’s an expert above the rest. Instead, everyone contributes to a culture of shared responsibility and consent. This essay walks you through starting your own pod, with resources at every step. It also includes two projects already doing this work. No hierarchy. No gatekeeping. Just people helping people stay free.
Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Digital Security Pod
Step 1: Gather a Pod of Trust
Start with three to six people you trust. These might be coworkers, neighbors, mutual aid collaborators, or friends. You don’t need tech experts. You need people who care about each other and want to keep each other safe.
Before diving into tools, take time to establish agreements. Commit to learning together, asking questions, and not shaming mistakes. You’re not building a system. You’re nurturing a culture.
Resource:
Community Defense Pods Guide (Just Practice)
Step 2: Share Digital Life Maps
Each person in the pod shares what devices they use, how they communicate, where their information lives, and what worries them most. Maybe someone uses WhatsApp for family chats, Signal for activism, and still stores everything in Google Docs. Maybe someone doesn’t know what a password manager is.
This isn’t about judgment. It’s about mapping the terrain, together.
Resource:
Security Self-Assessment Worksheet (Tactical Tech)
Step 3: Pick a Focus
Instead of trying to secure everything at once, choose one topic at a time. Password safety. Two-factor authentication. Safer messaging. App permissions. Phishing awareness. Decentralized backups. Let each pod member take turns researching and guiding a session.
Learning together builds Power With. No one is the teacher. No one is the product. Everyone becomes a protector.
Resource:
Surveillance Self-Defense Starter Pack (EFF)
Step 4: Practice, Don’t Just Plan
Install that password manager. Set up Signal. Change app settings. Run a fake phishing drill. The goal is not perfection. The goal is practice. And repetition. And remembering that security isn’t just a checklist. It’s a rhythm.
Also, make time to talk about emotional impacts. Fear. Shame. Anxiety. Talk about how it feels to live under surveillance. These feelings are part of the work too.
Resource:
Security Education Companion (EFF)
Step 5: Create a Rapid Response Plan
Decide what you’ll do if someone gets doxxed, hacked, or loses their device. Who backs up data? Who brings an extra phone? What are the emergency contacts? You don’t need military precision. You need relationships you can rely on.
Think of this like first aid, but digital. You’re not fighting a war. You’re keeping each other alive.
Resource:
Digital First Aid Kit (Access Now)
Step 6: Share the Pattern, Not the Blueprint
Your pod doesn’t need to grow into a large group. Instead, encourage others to start their own pods. Share your process. Host a teach-in. Make a zine. The power isn’t in scaling. It’s in repeating, adapting, and localizing.
Security culture spreads best when it grows through care, not fear.
Resource:
DIY Zine Kit for Security Culture (Rory Solomon)
Examples of Projects Already Doing This
1. Cryptoparty
Cryptoparty is a global movement of local, peer-led gatherings that help people learn digital security in casual, friendly environments. No lectures. No experts. Just humans helping humans with tools like Tor, Signal, and KeePass.
2. Reclaim the Net (Berlin)
This grassroots project runs multilingual workshops and pods in migrant, queer, and activist communities. They focus on consent-based digital literacy. Their motto? “Privacy is not a privilege.”
Conclusion: Digital Security as Biocentric Stewardship
We don’t secure our devices because we’re paranoid. We do it because we care. We do it to protect movements, stories, families, futures. In the face of surveillance capitalism and authoritarian creep, the most radical thing we can do might be this: keep each other safe, in small ways, every day.
Digital Security Pods are not about mastering technology. They’re about reclaiming agency. They’re about stewardship, of each other’s attention, trust, and wellbeing. And they remind us: autonomy is not isolation. It’s coordination. It’s Power With.
If we're going to survive this meta-crisis (social, ecological, digital) we're going to need each other. Let's build that safety, not just in firewalls and passwords, but in the spaces between us.