Study 2: Open Project / Exhibit

Overview

Develop a graphic method for encrypted communication. In your project, consider past forms of codes and ciphers (Hobo alphabets, military encryption methods), your intended audience (who the message is meant to reach and who it is meant to evade) and what you hope to communicate.

As an inroads, evaluate your own communications. Over the course of the semester we’ve identified the many parties determined to access our information, and their methods for doing so. With this in mind, choose the audience you’d like to reach, and the audience you’d like to evade. Then create a graphic and distribution method to encrypt your message, and have it be decipherable by the intended recipient.

What you encrypt is up to you, but again start with a sender, recipient and adversary in mind. A successful project will connect the content being transmitted, production method used to create it, and method for dispersion.

Optionally, this can be a group project in pairs.

Learning outcomes

  • Apply your research from throughout the semester
  • Think about graphic design and form-making in the context of technology and privacy
  • Create an expanded definition of exhibitions, and graphic design artifacts

Calendar

Week 13
T – Assign Final Project
TR – Step 1

Week 14
T – Step 2 due
TR – Step 3 due

Week 16
TR – Final crit

Reading

Definitions

Alice ("A"): the sender
Bob ("B"): the intended recipient
Eve ("eavesdropper"): the adversary

Prompt

Step 1

In pairs, choose one case study from Chapter 1's "Core Cases" and "Other Examples" of Obfustication a User’s Guide to research and share with the class. We will need one group of three, and you will each be expected to present on a topic (choose three case studies total).

Compile your findings into a 15-20 minute presentation to share with the class (7-10 mins per example, one from 1.1-1.13 and one from 2.1-2.18). Select your case studies here.

Your presentation should cover:

  • The history and context for the encryption technique
  • The audiences who they were intended for
  • How the method technically works
  • An example of encrypted communication

Due Thursday Apr 12th

Step 2

Determine your audience who you’d like to communicate with and who you’d like to evade (Alice, Bob and Eve). Are you aiming to reach a specific individual, subculture, or something more broad? Are you evading a specific party or organization, moderators within a larger system, or a specific technology?

Compile an index of the visual attributes of your audience in a simple website. This should include a 100 word description of the various parties involved and through text and imagery give an overview of the realm in which you are communicating.

You can use this HTML template as a starting point. Please upload and send me a link, or a *.zip file of your visual index before class on Tuesday.

Due Tuesday Apr 17th

Step 3

Based on your visual research, create 2 proposals for encryption methods. Any proposal should incorporate the language of your audience in a specific way. For instance, if you want specific friends in Facebook to receive your messages, and to evade data collection, how does the form of your proposal draw from its audience(s)? If you’re trying to evade specific technology – for instance if you want to hide from Apple’s FaceID or TouchID how does your proposal interact with Apple’s hardware and brand identity?

Due Thursday Apr 19th

Step 4

Finalize your method, document it, and make it accessible. If you make a typeface, create a type specimen for it. If you’re evading TouchID with prosthetics, film yourself accessing a device with and without them. Then communicate with your message in a simultaneously public and private way – this may be by sending emails, posting flyers around campus, creating wi-fi hotspots, or any other method to reach your audience.

The final presentation will be part of an 'exhibit', in which you showcase your work on CCA campus. As a result, think about how the presentation of your work can extend beyond the classroom and into other parts of the campus or community.

Due Thursday May 3rd

Requirements

  • Graphic encryption method
  • Distribution of a message as an 'exhibition'

References

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