OWASP Austin Chapter Monthly Meeting - January 2026 (Online)

30 minutes of meet-and-greet and Chapter information, then the Presentation!
Note: if attending in person, sign up at https://owasp-austin-2026-january.eventbrite.com) so we know how much food to purchase. Please do not pull an in-person ticket unless you are going to attend in-person, as we don't want to waste food or donations.

For over 5 years, OWASP Austin will be hosting a CryptoParty of 10 minute (max) lightening talks.

Speaker/Host: Josh Sokol

Current line-up: (limit 6)

• Josh Sokol
• Shwetha Babu Prasad: Why Websites Leak Sensitive Data — and How Exposure Can Be Technically Reduced
• Karen Lu: Keepass
• Buchi Reddy Busi Reddy: TBD

What is a CryptoParty --

In 1996, John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wrote 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' where he stated "We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity." The Internet of today is an amazing place of knowledge and opportunity, but it unfortunately falls short of Mr. Barlow's original vision.

In the 21st century we face problems of climate change, energy crisis, state censorship, mass surveillance, and on-going wars. We must be free to communicate and associate without fear. To realize our right to privacy and anonymity online, we need peer-reviewed, crowd-sourced solutions. CryptoParties provide the opportunity to meet up and learn how to use these solutions to give us all the means with which to assert our right to privacy and anonymity online. Topics include technologies like TOR, full-disk encryption, GPG, and many more. CryptoParties are free to attend, public, and not commercially aligned.

At our January OWASP Austin meeting, we will host a CryptoParty with the goal of inviting others to join us in learning about the tools and technologies that enable an individual's right to privacy. When the time comes, we will encourage you all to invite your family, friends, and peers to attend this event, but for now, Josh is looking for others who are willing to give a 10 minute max presentation on a crypto-oriented subject. The presentation will need to be laid out so that novice and experienced alike can take action based on the data presented. All tools must be free and open source. If you are interested in presenting, please e-mail Josh directly (do not reply to the list) with your name, bio, talk title, and abstract for consideration. This is going to be EPIC!