36C3 Tails table report
=======================
So, I was at the CCC and had a Tails table by the anarchist assembly there.
We had flyers, stickers, t-shirts (not really for sale actually, as I
didn't really know what to do with those), USB sticks (for donation), a
Tails banner and some lights.
We were quite visible but in this dark and crowded place we didn't reach
as much people as I thought we would. But we had nice discussions,
explained what Tails is and how it works to a few dozen people,
installed Tails on about 10 usb sticks (and let people do it themselves
most of the time), showed how to configure persistence, answered a good
number of questions (and some tricky ones, but thanks to the
documentation and other Tails contributors around we could answer pretty
much all questions!), and even installed Debian on a freshly bought
win10 computer :p
We distributed about 300 flyers there, and left about 200 at the Tor
table (which was surprisingly pretty much inaccessible :s). We gave out
one t-shirt to a Tails contributor (for free), and another one to a
comrade (to be paid yet, tails-accounting@ is aware of that). Probably
around 300 stickers have been picked up.
We got 249€ in donations, including a 100€ note.
We had this german Tails booklet and they were all taken, probably about
20 of them. We also had flyers for the soon-to-be-released book "A cat's
guide to internet freedom" (
https://catnip.article19.org/), and about 20
copies of the Tor part of it.
We were there everyday for about 5-6 hours, never before 15:00, never
after 21:30. The last day was shorter though. And when we were not
there, the flyers and stickers where left and the day after most of them
were gone.
You can see a picture of the table here:
https://share.riseup.net/#hNcbliKaGMmJlIvAA94Rgg
As for personnal feelings, I must say I was exhausted after the second
day — also due to personnal issues — and was not really up to come for
the 4th day. But I made it and actually did not regret. The CCC is so
crowded, the place we were was so dark, and the people (mostly guys I
must say) are not always very pleasant to talk with, but it's also a
good place for advertising, and a good place for actually meeting nice
people and sharing stories and ideas. We met really nice and diverse
Tails users, even some people we knew but didn't expect to see here!
I went there with a good friend of mine who is a Tails user but doesn't
call themself a power-user, but they were with me at the table during 3
out of the 4 days and did a very good job! Below is what they wanted to
add to this report.
There were also other Tails contributors, but they didn't really take
shifts at the table for many good reasons, and I was fine with that (and
I knew it beforehand). It was great to see you all over there!
My final feeling is positive and I will do it again :)
Here are the bits from my friend:
> I feel like i helped a dozen people either start tails, install it,
> configure the persistence and/or answer easy-ish questions about it.
> Even though i disliked the space we were in, I met many people, and
> learned a bunch of stuff.
>
> It felt weird for me that people that were actually involved in tails
> weren't more interested in taking part in holding the table, and
> answering questions about the project, although i can totally
> understand they weren't there for that and had many other stuff to do.
>
> Most of how i felt tho is explained above, and doesn't need correction
> :)
>
> Thanks for existing, y'all are doing great!
