This month's San Francisco Techno-Activism Third Monday: 1) ... will take place on TUESDAY 17th FEBRUARY, because we didn't want to stomp all over your long weekend. 2) ... features an eye-opening and fascinating discussion led by: Matthew "mjg59" Garrett, free software kernel coder. 3) ... will have Matthew walk you through: "TPMs, Management Engines, Secure Boot, Trusted Boot and things in-between." Hardwired code that can prevent you swapping out your computer's operating system[1]. Hidden, cordoned-off processors embedded in your PC that runs secret code, and can read your computer's memory and talk over the Internet without your knowledge[2]. For the last decade, and largely unnoticed, computers and mobile devices have been sprouting features that challenge the idea that the owner of a PC has ultimate control over their own hardware and software. These "trusted computing" developments have been called "treacherous computing"[3] by free software advocates because of their ability to betray the control of your computer to strangers. But might they also hold out the promise of better protection against external surveillance and compromise? Matthew won the 2013 Free Software Foundations' Free Software Award for his work to ensure that open platforms could work in conjunction with Secure Boot, and is now a FSF board member. He writes at http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/ and http://twitter.com/mjg59 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Secure_… [2] http://www.slideshare.net/codeblue_jp/igor-skochinsky-enpub [3] http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/drm.html 4) ... will take place at: EFF Headquarters, 815 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA 941110 http://eff.org/815eddy 5) ... is at February 17th, 6:30PM (get here for 6:00 for snacks and introductions) 6) ... has no need for you to RSVP but you should subscribe to https://lists.eff.org/mailman/listinfo/ta3m-sf for info of future talks. 7) ... is part of the global movement of Techno-Activism Third Mondays. TA3M is an informal meetup designed to connect software creators and activists who are interested in censorship, surveillance, and open technology. Currently, TA3M are held in fifteen cities throughout the world, and growing. As the name implies, it is held on the third Monday of each month. See https://wiki.openitp.org/events:techno-activism_3rd_mondays or https://ta3m.org/ for details of your local event. 8) ... will see you there!