Surveillance Self-Defense (EFF)
Summary
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) is the canonical English-language hub for activist digital-security guidance. It pairs a threat-modelling curriculum with step-by-step tool guides (Signal, Tor, password managers, two-factor authentication) and a “Security Planner” that recommends tools for a user’s stated profile.
Body
SSD structures its teaching around three questions every defender answers before adopting tools: what do I want to keep private, who do I want to keep it from, and what happens if they succeed? [source: ssd-eff] That framing — threat modelling first, tools second — is the page’s signature pedagogical move, and it is the discipline the rest of the digital-security canon inherits. The tool guides (Signal setup, Tor Browser, password managers, full-disk encryption, two-factor authentication) are written for non-technical readers and assume a smartphone or laptop they already own, not a specialised device. [source: ssd-eff] Each guide lists the specific adversary the tool addresses, the precise failure mode it leaves unresolved, and the operational habits that keep the protection intact (lock-screen passcodes, disappearing-message timers, account-recovery hygiene). [source: ssd-eff]
The Security Planner collects short questionnaires and recommends a personalised tool stack — useful as a campaign intake form for organisations onboarding new volunteers or staff. [source: ssd-eff] Material is published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, which permits short attributed quotes and translations with attribution; the wiki uses paraphrase-and-link in line with the project license norms. [source: ssd-eff] SSD ships in multiple languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Arabic, and others), making it a frequent anchor for non-English digital-security curricula. [source: ssd-eff] The page is maintained by EFF staff, with a visible editorial history; updates typically accompany major tool changes (Signal protocol updates, browser-deprecation cycles). [source: ssd-eff]
Use it for
When onboarding a new volunteer, an organiser, or a journalist to digital-security basics; when a campaign needs a one-stop reference rather than a curated reading list; when a non-English-language curriculum needs a CC-permissive source to translate from.