Cryptography Harlem:
Cybersecurity for the people.
Nonprofit AntiSurveillance, Cybersecurity Education & Advocacy Organization
AFROFUTURIST * HACKTIVIST * ACTION
Hoodies up. Keyboards down. Hack the Planet. For the better.
Become the hacktivist.
as featured in...
as featured in...
The black community needs encryption.
At Cryptography Harlem we believe that black communities are over-policed, under increased levels of surveillance, and marginalization. Encryption offers privacy, safety, and protection. In the form of advocacy and education it can provide the knowledge to protect the community from digital harms.
In the form of a job in cybersecurity, it can offer life changing possibilities.
We offer:
digital rights advocacy. digital harm prevention. internships. mentorship for everyone.
safety & technology guidance for organizers, activists, and protestors.
cybersecurity education and training to non-traditional candidates, underrepresented & underestimated groups.
cybersecurity services & assistance to not-for-profits & companies.
training on how to become a hacktivist (for good).
security research focused on the digital harms faced by vulnerable and/or marginalized communities.
Cryptography Harlem Livestream:
Weekly Hacker broadcast!
WATCH the weekly livestream. Since the beginning Cryptography Harlem has had a home at the Harlem Business Alliance on Malcolm X Blvd . Around the corner from the busiest street in Harlem USA, Martin Luther King Blvd. During the COVID-19 pandemic we have struggled to stay connected as a community. We use the livestream to reach new audiences and reconnect with our friends and fam from 125th street. The last 30 days of streams are all on twitch.tv/cryptoharlem All content including past episodes from the livestream will be eventually posted on YouTube and the stream’s dedicated website cryptoharlem.live
hit us up on the livestream hotline: Signal & Whatsapp: for secure and encrypted questions: +1 574 889-0048 ricochet refresh is: ricochet:ubxhbhkjfak5zz67znpkl63udjgkix6df2yt7p6ixwf5f5v7d3poswid
“SECRETS IN YOUR DATA” on PBS NOVA (2024)
“Privacy and Security are not the same…when your privacy is taken from you, your agency is taken from you…”
- Matt Mitchell founder Cryptography Harlem
SANS NEW2CYBER
In March 2023, our founder Matt Mitchell spoke at the SANS NEW2CYBER Summit in Baltimore, Maryland. His notes are in slide format here. Click to open it.
Inside the party.
In 2018, VICE Motherboard created this video for Black History Month of inside Cryptography Harlem.
all jokes aside.
In 2016, we were invited by “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”, to be part of this “Ms. Robot” collaboration with ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’’s Ashley Nicole Black & rapstar Talib Kweli. about the change in U.S government administration & the effect of new surveillance powers on the black community.
“Real” recognizes real… MR. ROBOT, a series about fictional hackivist pushing back, pays respect to CRYPTOGRAPHY HARLEM, real hacktivist fighting for black & people from communities pushed to the margins of society.
mr robot, season 3 episode 5, the elevator phone call on signal app.
mr robot, season 3 episode 6, elliot tries to shut it all down. Runs into a familiar name, Cryptography Harlem founder “Matt Mitchell”.
Past speakers & events
bcrypt
Yan is currently the Chief Information Security Officer at Brave Software. She has worked on numerous open source security and privacy projects, including Let's Encrypt, HTTPS Everywhere, SecureDrop, and Privacy Badger. In addition to being a talk reviewer for DEF CON, she has served as a board member of the Zcash Foundation and an elected member of the W3C Technical Architecture Group. Prior to starting at Brave in 2015, Yan was a Senior Security Engineer at Yahoo and a Senior Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
corrupt
a.k.a. John Lee, a.k.a. John Threat, used the name "Corrupt" as a member of Masters of Deception (MOD), a New York based hacker group in the early '90s. He as on the cover of Wired Magazine. Was on 60 minutes. Is a global security consultant, TV/Film writer director, and futurist. John direct music videos, commercials, film, TV and interactive projects between assignments. John also develops tech and blockchain related technology.
hexadecim8
a.k.a. Emily Crose is has been an information security professional for over a decade. She has been an officer for multiple government organizations including the NSA, CIA and US Army INSCOM. She currently works to secure critical industrial infrastructure worldwide. She is also an advocate for counter white nationalism, and government transparency.
s7ephen
a.k.a. Stephen A. Ridley is a security researcher with more than 10 years of experience in software development, software security, and reverse engineering. Within that last few years, he has presented his research and spoken about reverse engineering and software security research on every continent except Antarctica. Stephen and his work have been featured on NPR and NBC and in the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Washington Post, Fast Company, VentureBeat, Slashdot, The Register, and other publications.
afdudley.eth
Rick Dudley has over fifteen years of experience as an architect and consultant, and has implemented several established blockchain systems since 2015. He specializes in mechanism design with a focus on federated proof of stake consensus systems.
Marcus Carey
Marcus Carey is an Enterprise Architect at ReliaQuest and the founder and CEO of Threatcare. He is a hacker who helps people not suck at cybersecurity. Marcus started his technology voyage in U.S. Navy Cryptology and working at the National Security Agency (NSA). Threatcare is the leader in proactive cyber defense and the creator of the “Tribe of Hackers” series of books.
mk48
aka Michaela Barnett is the founder and lead of Blacks in Cybersecurity. Michaela is penetration tester, an award winning Computer security enthusiast, advocate, and activist.
Q
aka Quiessence Phillips, a cybersecurity professional with 12+ years of experience working within the financial industry and most recently in the public sector, where she joined the City of New York as Deputy CISO. At New York City Cyber Command, she leads the Threat Management function, which encompasses the City’s Security Operations Center, Computer Emergency Response, Cyber Threat Intelligence, Counter Threat Automation teams.
divinetechygirl
aka Christina Morillo, an information security practitioner with a focus on enterprise security and identity. Her experience in cloud identity, and security programs & deployments, have taken her to companies like Morgan Stanley, Fitch Ratings, AllianceBernstein, Microsoft and currently Marqeta.
Christina advocates for and is passionate about meeting people and companies where they are, and is also a proponent of making security practical, accessible and easy to digest. When she is not spending time with her family, or knee deep in her graduate studies, you can find her co-leading Women in Security and Privacy’s NYC chapter, and supporting others in the tech & security community as an advisor and mentor.
fatou
aka Dr. Fatou Sankare is a member of Blacks in Cybersecurity. Dr, Fatou graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Howard University and received her Master of Science in Cybersecurity at Fordham University. Fatou Sankare received her PhD in Cybersecurity from Marymount University.
Fatou is a government contractor working as a Cyber Crime Data Scientist and she is an Assistant Professor. Fatou is also the founder of Datacation LLC — with a mission to increase cyber education particularly in marginalized communities. Fatou is a Certified Ethical Hacker and currently holds the AWS Machine Learning Specialty Certification.
khadijah
a.k.a. Khadijah Miller is a member of Blacks in Cybersecurity. Khadijah is a web application developer, and customer experience professional.
harlo
aka Harlo Holmes is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Director of Digital Security at Freedom of the Press Foundation. She strives to help individual journalists in various media organizations become confident and effective in securing their communications within their newsrooms, with their sources, and with the public at large. She is a media scholar, software programmer, and activist; and was a regular contributor to the open source mobile security collective The Guardian Project. Harlo is also an adjunct professor at New York University.
nadia
aka Nadia Atker. Ethiopian-Sudanese-Swedish Desginer, engineer & entrepreneur. Currently CEO of Quad9. Nadia co-founded ClimateGains a climate fintech nonprofit as well as Edgeryders-the collective Intelligence Company. Her work has been featured in :a Repububblica, Vogue Italia, The New Yorker, Wired, Dazed, The Guardian, L’Echo, and The Nation.
(photocredit: Mask by artist Pierre-Louis Graizon)
infosecsherpa
aka Tracy Z. Maleeff, is the principal of Sherpa Intelligence LLC. She previously held roles at the Krebs Stamos Group, The New York Times Company, and GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to joining the Information Security field, Tracy worked as a librarian in academic, corporate, and law firm libraries. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh in addition to undergraduate degrees from both Temple University (magna cum laude) and the Pennsylvania State University. Tracy has been featured in the Tribe of Hackers: Cybersecurity Advice and Tribe of Hackers: Leadership books. Tracy publishes an Information Security & Privacy newsletter at infosecsherpa.medium.com. See https://linktr.ee/infosecsherpa for talks, interviews, and more.
geminiimatt
aka Matteo is one of the world’s premiere hackers, he founded and leads Cryptography Harlem. Cryptography Harlem hosts impromptu workshops teaching basic cryptography tools to the predominately African American community in upper Manhattan. . Matt is a well known security researcher, operational security trainer, and data journalist. In 2021, Matt graced the cover of Newsweek magazine and was named one of America's Greatest Disruptors. That year he was awarded a Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in 2020 named a WIRED25 by Wired magazine, and in 2017 named a Human of The Year by Vice Motherboard.
sa0un
aka Sarah Aoun is a security and privacy researcher. Sarah's work lies at the intersection of tech, human rights, and transformative justice. She works with groups around the world on security, privacy, and internet freedom. Most recently, she was the VP of Security and Chief Technology Officer at the Open Technology Fund, an organization that funds projects, research, and technology focused on countering censorship and surveillance. She was a 2017-2018 Ford Mozilla Open Web Fellow, an Internet Freedom Fellow, and am a technical advisor for the Internet Freedom Festival, the Human Rights Foundation, and Global Journalist Security.
Tich_
aka Laura Tich is an information security enthusiast with expertise in offensive security and security training. Tich is the founder of SheHacks_KE, a community of women in information security in Kenya. At SheHacks, Tich leads outreach and mentorship efforts to engage women interest in cybersecurity across Kenya and help them carve their career paths in the industry. Tich is also a cybersecurity advisor to Ford Foundation where she worked to create a Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (CAT) to help organizations measure their security maturity and resiliency. She is a well known digital security trainer with experience working with investigative journalists and civil society organizations across Africa, protecting them from cyber threats.. Her passion for digital and inclusion sipires her work in community building and security training.
court
aka Courtney Wright is a member of Blacks In Cybersecurity. Courtney is a Junior Cybersecurity Consultant, Courtney started her cybersecurity journey January 2023. Her goal is to specialize in SIEM/SOAR and Incident Response. She has the pleasure of teaching at the Ellington Cyber Academy SIEM/SOAR program as an Apprentice Instructor. Courtney is an advocate for and is passionate about meeting people and sharing knowledge on technology, mental health and wellness.