Hi @rskikuli, there is no minimum/maximum size or duration to a cryptoparty. In 2013 I did a 600 person Cryptofest in London at Goldsmiths University (it lasted from 10:00 to 19:00). There have been 3000+ ppl cryptoparties in Brazil.
The important thing is a ‘teacher’-‘student’ ratio of no more than 1:8 orso for the hands-on part. In this context the ‘teacher’ is anyone who is capable of walking ‘students’ through the setup of the various applications such as GPG/Thunderbird/Enigmail, TOR-browsers, VeraCrypt and OTR/Pidgin. Detailed instructions on this can be found here:
http://tcij.org/resources/handbooks/infosec
I’m going to assume quite a few of the members of Openlabs could fill the ‘teacher’ role given the level of technical understanding I’ve seen during OSCAL. And that we could also train more volunteers for this over time.
Usually a cryptoparty will begin with a lecture on basic theory (why, what, how) and some discussion on the implications of all we have learned since 2013 about our digital environment. After that the rest of the day is used for getting hands-on with the software, ideally on computers people will take home with them afterward.
If many participants do not have portable computers perhaps we can set them up with configured environments on USB-TAILS drives. This will allow them to use other PC’s to run their own, safe, platform that is fully configured with encrypted email, TOR-browser, encrypted chat and encrypted file-storage. An 8 gig USB-drive will work for this although a slightly bigger size can be convenient (TAILS will take 4 gigs of space and whatever remains is used for email/documents/bookmarks and so forth. It would be best if people bought (cash only, no only ordering) their own USB_drives so we put the trust-point with them.
RaspberryPi’s with a 16-64Gig memorycard can also be an affordable alternative if laptops are too expensive. We can hook them up to available keyboards/screens and afterward people can take them home to keep them safe (and hook them up there to keyboard/screen of they have one with a fixed PC). Cases for these can be 3D-printed locally and they only cost 25 Euro’s a pop. I can bring 20 orso if that is helpful.
Also looking into the possibilities of collecting used laptops from Dutch hackerspaces for free and bringing a box with me (I can upscale my luggage to 50 KG - about 20 laptops + the weight of the container).I realise 20 laptops does not solve the entire problem but we have to start somewhere.
So to return to your original question: how many? I don’t know. If Openlabs can partner with Tirana University and go big with a party at the start of the academic year. But if the Openlabs community is more comfortable starting small that may be a wise decision as well. Most of the hard work of making such a thing happen will have to be done locally so it needs to be something the local community is happy doing.
Is there a big summer break like in France? When does it start? Happy to drop by for a long weekend late June or early July to do some brainstorming (or even a mini-cryptoparty as a practice-run) if that makes sense.
Best to everyone there. You are all awesome!
ps: whenever I talk about bringing stuff: it is to donate, not to sell since that would not make any sense to me.
