Ring-0
Ring-0 is a collective of people and projects that aims to create technology alternatives that exist outside the mainstream. We follow a not-for-profit, largely D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) ethic as a radical alternative to the dominant capitalist culture. This practice is powerful and liberatory, because it is non-hierarchical, non-transactional,and doesn’t involve authorities or states.
Events
Free Software Cafe
- All sessions will be hands on, we’ll be installing software and fiddling with it!
- For the Linux 101 session, please bring a laptop and if possible, an empty flash drive (a.k.a. thumb drive). If you intend on wiping your laptop completely, make arrangements to save important data.
- For the other sessions, a laptop, ipad or phone will do.
Digital Hygiene Workshops - Fall 2025 (online)
What’s wrong with the mainstream?
Corporate social media, streaming platforms, and big tech have steadily increased their capture of our lives to the point where they now mediate much of our social experiences and needs, for ‘free’. These corporate platforms are profit-driven, destroy competition, monetize our data and attention. They are intentionally designed to be addictive, not to build diverse, vibrant and creative spaces. These platforms are walled gardens. They leverage the network effect to solidify their dominance: “everyone” is there, so everyone else wants to be there. Obviously, they are hostile to anyone who doesn’t want to sign up. Where do all their profits go? To billionaires who invest in war, surveillance and fossil fuels, to degrade the information ecosystem, to lobby governments and make the world worse for all of us.
The more we depend on these platforms, the more we strengthen their monopolies and erode our ability to build alternatives and survive the onslaught, the more we exclude anyone who isn’t willing to use corporate media, anyone who doesn’t want to trade their life and attention for an account, or anyone who just can’t for the sake of their mental health.
What can we do?
Many of us are seeking relief from the endless doomscroll and attention-hogging of apps like Instagram and TikTok, or are frustrated with the cost, restrictions and algorithmic whims of Spotify. We need to reorient, so these corporate platforms are not central.
We could use tried-and-true offline practices, like print zines, cassette demos, and paper flyers, but we also have to accept that the Internet has irreversibly changed how people connect and we must intervene in both on- and offline spaces. FOMO is real but as more of us refuse, the less powerful the capitalist platforms become and we build stronger alternative cultures, together.
Resources
Browser
Password Management
- Bitwarden - trusted cloud password manager
- Proton - trusted cloud password manager
- 1password - trusted cloud password manager
- Vaultwarden - self-hosted password manager
- KeypassDX - offline (on-device) password manager
Secure Communications
Social Media
Alternative Services & Software
- alternative.to - Powerful resource for finding alternatives to any software or service
- Privacy Frontends - Alternative frontends for commercial services like Youtube, Reddit, Discord etc.
- LibRedirect Browser Extension - Automatically use privacy respecting frontends!
- Try Linux (Mint)
- GrapheneOS - secure Android replacement
Search Engines
Self-Hosting
Misc resources
- Are your accounts breached?
- Techlore - great place for questions, information and resources
- Electronic frontier foundation - great place for news, advocacy and resources
- The CounterForce - hardcore underground punk, D.I.Y.
- Terms of Service - corporate terms of service explained in plain English
- Real-time Billionaires - track the wealth hoarders
- More niche and cool forums
Surveillance Capitalism & Consequences
- Meta in Myanmar
- Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
- Palantir U.S. Surveillance Database
- Meta Manhattan-sized data centre
- Spotify invests in Military AI
- Meta makes Military AI
- Google makes Military AI
- On surveillance capitalism
- Kroger Individual Pricing
- How Google ruined search
Contact us
Ring-0 runs a group on signal for questions, suggestions and discussion. If you’d like to join, please send a message to rediguana.31 on signal with a couple of lines describing how you heard about us :)
You can also reach us by e-mail at ring0.chaos963@silomails.com