Guide d'autodéfense numérique (guide.boum.org)
Summary
The Guide d’autodéfense numérique, published by the French collective guide.boum.org, is the most comprehensive French-language digital-security reference for activists, organised as two printable volumes: Tome 1 (“Hors connexion”) on offline threats and Tome 2 (“En ligne”) on online threats. It is published under a Licence Art Libre (≈ Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike).
Body
The guide is the work of a libre-software collective that has been writing it since 2009; the current editions run to roughly 180 pages (Tome 1) and 156 pages (Tome 2). [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes] The structure deliberately mirrors the offline/online split: a campaigner worried about a stolen laptop faces different threats from one worried about a compromised messaging account, and the guide addresses each without forcing the reader to absorb the other half first. [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes]
Tome 1 (“Hors connexion”) covers the threat-model chapter, password hygiene, full-disk encryption, secure deletion, operating-system choice, and physical-device security (the lockscreen, the recovery key, the in-person threat of device seizure). [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes] Tome 2 (“En ligne”) covers the network model, browser security, Tor, messaging, encrypted email, metadata, and the question of trust in service providers. [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes] Both volumes include worked examples, command-line recipes, and decision trees that are unusual for activist-grade material — the guide assumes a reader willing to learn about cipher suites and metadata structure, not only about app recommendations. [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes]
The Licence Art Libre is broadly equivalent to Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike; the guide permits adaptation and translation provided derivative works carry the same licence. [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes] This has made it a frequent source for French-language curricula in Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, and francophone Africa; francophone activist groups often translate it wholesale rather than develop parallel material. [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes]
Compared with the Nothing2Hide zine (shorter, less technical, more recent), this guide is the deeper reference for an activist who has time to read 180 pages and who plans to operate their own device. [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes] Compared with the EFF SSD (English, modular, fast to navigate), this guide is the French-language equivalent in scope and depth, with the additional attention to a self-hosting-friendly threat model. [source: guide-survie-securite-numerique-activistes]
Use it for
A reference text for a digital-security working group with time to read in depth; a translation source for a francophone jurisdiction; a teaching text for a multi-week course in lieu of a workshop handout.