Instructables has just posted the latest installment in their series of HOWTOs inspired by my young adult novel Little Brother (remember, you can get on BBtv with your own videos demonstrating these).

Today, the subject is using encrypting your Gmail messages:

The principle behind GPG encryption is easy. Anyone who wants to play creates a public key and a private key. Your public key is the part of the encryption that you make public. Your private key is the part of the encryption that you never share with anyone under any circumstance.

The two keys work together so that you need both to decrypt anything. To send an encrypted message to someone you lock the message with their public key and when they get it, they can unlock it with their private key. If they want to respond, then they encode the message with your public key and you can read it with your private key.

Of course, this only works so long as you can trust that you have been given the right public key and that you know who you are talking to. One of doing this is by having a key signing party with your close friends. You all show up at a given location at a given time and exchange public keys. Then you have a list of trusted public keys with which you can communicate. This is often referred to as a web of trust.

Link, Link to other Instructables feed

See also:

The awesome science fiction podcast StarShipSofa is the latest feed to roll in an excerpt from the Little Brother audiobook. If you’ve got a podcast and you want to excerpt some Little Brother audiobook, drop me a line!)

I’ve been on my Little Brother book-tour for two days (doing school appearances around Chicago), and for the next two nights, I’ll be doing public events at Chicago area bookstores:

Tonight (Wednesday, May 14):
Anderson’s Bookshops, Naperville, IL
123 West Jefferson Avenue
Naperville, IL 60540
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
7:00 pm

Tomorrow (Thursday, May 15):
Barnes & Noble, Chicago, IL
1441 W. Webster Street
Chicago, IL 60614
Thursday, May 15, 2008
7:30 pm

Hope to see you there!

(Image: Little Brother Sketch, a concept for the Little Brother paperback cover art posted by Tor’s Assistant Mass-Market Art Director, Pablo Defendini)

Today on BBtv, I issued a challenge to Little Brother readers asking them to try out the Instructables HOWTOs that explain how to build the technology and projects in the book. We’re going to collect the best ones and feature them on future episodes of BBtv — the idea is to start a community of people who help each other make stuff that gives them more liberty and control over their lives. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Link, Link to feed of Little Brother Instructables

Here’s the latest installment in Instructables’ series of HOWTOs inspired by my young adult novel Little Brother, which tells the story of young people who use homebrew technology to restore their civil liberties after a police crackdown on terrorism.

This week’s installment: What to do if the police stop you.

1. What you say to the police is always important. What you say can be used against you, and it can give the police an excuse to arrest you, especially if you badmouth a police officer.

2. You must show your driver’s license and registration when stopped in a car. Otherwise, you don’t have to answer any questions if you are detained or arrested, with one important exception. The police may ask for your name if you have been properly detained, and you can be arrested in some states for refusing to give it. If you reasonably fear that your name is incriminating, you can claim the right to remain silent, which may be a defense in case you are arrested anyway.

3. You do not have to consent to any search of yourself, your car or your house. If you DO consent to a search, it can affect your rights later in court. If the police say they have a search warrant, ASK TO SEE IT.

4. Do not interfere with, or obstruct the police, as you you can be arrested for it.

Link

Joshua Farber writes,

This afternoon, our school recieved a copy of Little Brother which was donated by a reader from Ridgefield, CT through the donation program. The Barnes and Noble “description” says:

“I saw your request on Cory’s site; I loved the book, I’m glad I could share.”

Bless you, benefactor. And Cory, bless you, too. I’ve been walking around glowing for over an hour, book in hand. When people (teachers and students) ask about my happiness, I tell them that socio-economic networking is the best thing ever. And then we get to talk about stuff that really matters. And we all get a little closer, and a little more knowledgable, and a LOT more excited.

Thanks for making my job work better, for making our school easier and more fun, for connecting us to you and vice versa, for making the world. Thanks to everyone else, too, for everything else. Whee!

Off to find just the right kid and slip the book into her hand — from there, I’ll ask the kids to pass it along virally until the end of the year, and then we’ll see where the book, the ideas, and the way it arrived here can take us.

Now that’s pretty freaking awesome.