2025 We're Back!

The Montreal Anarchist Tech Convergence is a yearly gathering on the intersection of anarchism and technology.

MATC 2025 Flyer

October 11 and 12 2025

A 2-day event: October 11 and 12 2025 At Batiment 7 in Tiohtia:ke Montreal

Welcome to anarcho-curious techies, tech-curious anarchists, and everyone in between.

The event is free but we will collect donations to cover the costs of the space! Bring cash!

Location | Schedule | Unconference | Accessibility | Food

Contact

🗯️ https://kolektiva.social/@MTL_ATC <-- Check here for updates!

📧 mtl-atc@riseup.net

Location

The 2024 Montreal Anarchist Tech Convergence is taking place at Batiment 7 in the Pointe St-Charles neighborhood.

The main address is:
1900 Rue Le Ber
Montreal, QC
H3K 2A4

The MATC will take place in multiple spaces throughout B7: espace Tapage, le Grand Atlier and the small Meeting Room.

To find us at the welcome table, please come to the entrance of Tapage / Recyborg, mid-way down the North side of the building!

Unconference

There will be a room available for an "unconference" schedule. Bring any last-minute proposal you like, and sign up for a slot on the white board!

Accessibilty Information

Masks!

We are striving for a universally-masked event and masks will be provided at the welcome table!

Physical Accessibility

Please consult Batiment Sept's own Accessibility Information

Food

Vegan lunch will be provided on a by-donation basis. Baitment Sept also houses a bar (Sans Taverne) and a grocery store (Épicerie le Détour) for coffee, drinks, and food.

Schedule

Saturday activities will run from 10:30-18h

From 18h-22h on Saturday there will be a party at Tapage so we can continue hanging out, grab a drink (the bar will be open) and hack together. There will be low-key DJs and possibly some more food served!

Sunday activities will run from 11:30-18h

MTL-ATC Schedule 2025

See complete activity descriptions below, or click the links.

Saturday, October 11th List of Activities

Sunday, October 12th List of Activities

Activity Descriptions and Details (Saturday)

Intro to GrapheneOS

Tapage, Saturday 11:00 - 11:55

This workshop will start by explaining GrapheneOS and why it is an important resource for anarchists. The bulk of the workshop will be reviewing its various features, discussing how and why they're useful, and answering questions. If you're already very familiar with GrapheneOS, your presence and contributions are also welcome to add on to the main presentation, and if there's time at the end we can have a more open ended discussion about whatever has come up along the way.

Atelier d'introduction sur comment monter un site web en utilisant la plateforme Wordpress

Le Grand Atelier, Saturday 11:00 - 11:55

Vous voulez avoir un site web pour votre collectif mais vous ne savez pas comment faire ? Cet atelier va introduire comment acheter un nom pour le site, comment installer Wordpress sur un espace, comment lier tout ça ensemble, et finalement introduire la base sur comment fonctionne Wordpress.

The Friendly Neighborhood Hacker's Guide to Activist Digital Security

Tapage, Saturday 12:00 - 12:55

A small group of autonomous Palestine organizers in NYC is about to publish (late Sept) what may be the most detailed guide to cybersecurity, privacy, and anonymity for activists in the United States. Other privacy guides are out of date, or broad and surface level so that they can be adapted for different situations, leaving a lot up to the reader. We want to help our neighbors and comrades defend themselves against a gargantuan police force that has the resources, technology, and training of the most advanced military and intelligence agencies in the world. This is much different than hiding your browsing history from advertisers or hiding your location from an abusive partner, and it changes fast. We want to connect with those who are interested in using it outside the US to help them make the changes that would be required. We invite international collaboration on sharing, perfecting, and updating this information to help secure our collective liberation. We keep each other safe!

Reticulum Networks for Anarchists

Le Grand Atelier, Saturday 12:00 - 12:55

Reticulum is a new "cryptography-based networking stack" that allows individuals and communities to build autonomous and encrypted digital networks that are highly portable and very resistant to surveillance, censorship, and control. Reticulum can connect devices using the existing Internet, WiFi, wires, LoRa (mesh radios), HAM radio, sneakernet, and anything else you can imagine. All these methods can be combined in mesh networks to span a local area or the entire planet using whatever technology is available: to evade corporate/state surveillance today, or to build networks without the Internet tomorrow. This workshop will be an introduction to Reticulum followed by a hands-on a how-to. There will be a local Reticulum network set up for you to join. Currently, there is an encrypted chat application and a low-bandwith world wide web that both run on Reticulum that we will explore. The network will stay up for the duration of the convergence!

Bring a laptop or Android device to try Reticulum and joint the convergence network!

Procuring and Running Anonymous Infrastructure

Tapage, Saturday 14:00 - 14:25

A brief guide to spinning up and administering a Linux virtual machine anonymously. This talk will discuss ways of getting anonymous crypto, renting a server with anonymous crypto, and some things to consider when remotely accessing anonymous infra.

Introduction to Mapping and Planning with QGIS

Le Grand Atelier, Saturday 14:00 - 14:55

This workshop will introduce folks to a free and open-source mapping + geospatial software called QGIS which can be used to create and manipulate spatial data. Workshop will cover what types of data can be used, where to find data you need, how to make it yourself, how to import it into QGIS, and some use cases related to local organizing and activism.

You are encouraged to bring a laptop to this workshop to follow along!

Outils logiciels pour la recherche scientifique libre et résiliente

Tapage, Saturday 14:30 - 14:55

Les logiciels libres sont de puissants outils permettant aux associations de scientifiques de concilier transparence, inclusivité et performance. Après un an de déploiment, de formation et d'utilisation intensive de logiciels libres dans un groupe de recherche d'une vingtaine de scientifiques, je présenterai les défis auxquels nous avons fait face, les avantages que leur utilisation procurre. Au delà de la recherche scientifique, les leçons retenues sont pertinentes pour toute association tentant de réaliser de manière ouverte un ou plusieurs projets à haut risque technologique avec des outils libres.

Open Source/low capital development and manufacture of eminently useful equipment (and how we can make it happen much more so that all beings may be happy)

Tapage, Saturday 15:00 - 15:25

This is a presentation and then a group discussion where we will talk about making eminently useful physical equipment under an open source paradigm. This means farm equipment, disease prevention stuff, energy equipment, manufacturing equipment, biotech stuff, scientific equipment, all kinds of stuff, but just not decorations or toys for rich people. I'll share how I've discovered there is tons of good stuff to find even on well explored subjects, and how I was able to design and produce the best air purifiers and energy recovery ventilators in the world, all open source, and how I believe it is possible to make a living wage doing it. We will discuss how we can do it more collaboratively and encourage new undertakings in this line. This builds on the Open Source Ecology project.

Privacy & Security Workshop

Le Grand Atelier, Saturday 15:00 - 15:55

Come work together on securing your devices, accounts, and communications. In the face of increased surveillance and repression by the state and big tech, personal and communal digital defense is increasingly important. We will start with a short presentation on privacy & security risks in the context of anarchist action. We'll then invite you to choose a part of your digital life to co-work & skill-share on with facilitators and attendees. For instance, set up a password manager. Bring your laptops and phones. All tech levels welcome. The workshop is intended to benefit all, including those not on the anarchist front line. During the week of action for Palestine organized by D4P and CLAC, we are running a sibling presentation to discuss the complicity of big tech in genocide and apartheid through repression, surveillance, cyber weapons, and other means. More details to come: https://www.clac-montreal.net

You are encouraged your bring your laptop or device to this workshop to follow along!

The Great Firewall Export - Chinese Surveillance and Censorship Goes Global

Tapage, Saturday 15:30 - 15:55

A recent leak from Geedge Networks, a Chinese firm, has uncovered China's efforts to export its Great Firewall technology to countries such as Ethiopia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan. In this talk, I will discuss how we bootstrapped a cross-border journalistic investigation, conducted by a Pulitzer-winning team, all on a limited budget. Working with a dataset of over 100,000 documents and source code, we deployed a document search engine, a machine translation pipeline, and a private collaboration platform, all running on recycled hardware within a homelab environment. I will also share our key findings from the data, explain how the technology functions and is deployed, and explore ways to resist its implementation.

An alternate 101 to static sites

Le Grand Atelier, Saturday 16:00 - 16:55

This is the CSS/HTML workshop that you won't find on the Mozilla site. A presentation starts with the politics of personal websites & the early internet. The later half is an overview of the framework of CSS and HTML writing - including philosophies of web accessibility - and ending with examples of some radical websites. Mention will be made of privacy needs. Made for beginners and those who are already proficient in writing and hosting static sites.

Riseup Services Showcase

Tapage, Saturday Lightning Block 1: 16:00 - 16:55

Riseup has been providing online communication tools for people and groups working on liberatory social change for more than 25 years now. It is a project to create democratic alternatives and practice self-determination by controlling our own secure means of communications. During this talk, we will showcase the three main services provided by Riseup (emails, VPN and mailing lists).

Industrial Control Systems: How do they work and how do they break? (Lightning Talk)

Tapage, Saturday Lightning Block 1: 16:00 - 16:55

What are all these wires? Industrial control systems are deployed in factories, pipelines, critical infrastructure, and machines. This talk is a quick overview of components, what can go wrong, and what other systems might be connected to them?

Plateforme libre et décentralisée de Justice Unifiée pour les Signalements, Témoignages et Evidences (Lightning Talk)

Tapage, Saturday Lightning Block 1: 16:00 - 16:55

Présentation d'un projet de plateforme libre et décentralisée pour une mise en commun des signalements, témoignages et évidences autour des interventions policières, le dépôt de plaintes auprès d'organismes comme la Commission des Droits de la Personne et des Droits de la Jeunesse (CDPDJ) ou la Commissaire à la déontologie policière au Québec tout en assurant la publication volontaire et sécurisé ainsi que l'authentification des plaintes publiées.

Qubes user group

Meeting Room, Saturday 16:30 - 16:55

If you already use Qubes OS, or would like to talk to people who do, this is a good opportunity to hang out and talk shop Share your set ups, help each other with anything we might be struggling with, or gawk at others' themes - whatever you want!

Qubes OS: advanced techniques

Le Grant Atelier, Saturday 17:00 - 17:55

The default Qubes setup leaves a lot to be desired, but it can be improved! MirageOS, salt stack, SELinux, RPC sevices, etc... there are many techniques that can improve the security and UX of Qubes OS.

Tapage, Saturday 17:00 - 17:55

This discussion invites participants to imagine and critically engage with cyberfeminism, posthumanism, and the feminist ethics of care within speculative and real-world frameworks. This approach is rooted in a refusal of narrow anthropocentric, heteronormative, and ableist paradigms by challenging taken-for-granted notions of subjectivity, embodiment, and agency, especially as they are shaped by emergent technologies and socio-political forces under capitalism and colonialism. This theme centres on how emergent technologies—when leveraged through feminist, queer, and anti-capitalist lenses—can disrupt or re-imagine the boundaries of gender, embodiment, and social organization in the face of climate crisis, ableism, and global capitalism. By exploring avenues such as glitch feminism, transfeminist resistance to techno-hegemony, and feminist economics, the analysis foregrounds collective strategies for building ethical, sustainable, and non-hierarchical alternatives.

Activity Descriptions and Details (Sunday)

OSINT capture the flag

Tapage, Sunday 12:00 - 12:55 for sign up and orientation, 17:30 - 17:55 for announcement of winners and prize ceremony

Calling all google dorks and OSINT nerds, come test your chops on a friendly Capture The Flag game, as we hunt down tasty morsels of intel about /[REDACTED/] on the open internet. Come as a team or an individual. Bring a computer and your sharpest search queries or your slickest CLI tools. We'll have prizes for teams and individuals at all levels. Everyone welcome. Sign up at the door.

Bring your laptop to compete in the CTF!

Panel: Anarchist Internet Infrastructure

Tapage, Sunday 14:00 - 14:55

This panel will bring together members from different anarchist collectives who provide online infrastructure for anarchists: Anarchy Planet, Kolektiva, and Riseup. They will speak about the importance of such projects, the challenges faced in the past or presently, and share thoughts on the state of the scene in general.

Tapage, Sunday 15:00 - 15:55

This workshop will be in two parts. First, there will be an introduction to the Fediverse and it's most popular component Mastodon. We'll explain how these alternative social media networks work and why they should be of interested to anarchists. Next, there will a some demos of using Mastodon and a chance for you to ask your questions or get help. Have you wanted to try Mastodon but got paralyzed at the "where do I sign up" stage? Did you create an account and get immediately lost in the empty timeline? Are you a regular user, but still don't understand what different "instances" are? Confused about all the different apps? Whatever the case may be, bring your questions and we'll help you out!

Bringing your device (phone or laptop) is optional if you want to follow along/get help, but not necessary!

Meddling with Mediation: A critical discussion of how we engage with technology

Tapage, Sunday 16:00 - 16:55

We use technology to find each other, to connect, to express ourselves, to share love and solidarity with distant struggles. We've gotten good at scraping together the leftovers that industrial society has to offer to help create a new world. Even so, technology has a mediating effect on our discussions and how we relate to each other. If we cannot think freely in the shadow of a church and the repurposing of Leviathan's rotting corpse ensures its reanimation, then how do we as anarchists engage with technology? This discussion aims to get at the core of contradictions we often face as anarchists. It will include a very brief intro to the discussion topic and then pose a series of questions to guide discussion about which technical projects interest us as anarchists, and how mediation takes different forms subject to the technology itself and how we use it.

What is Foulab? (Lightning Talk)

Tapage, Sunday Lightning Block 2: 17:00 - 17:30

Founded in 2009 and based in the Saint-Henri neighborhood, Foulab is one of the first hackerspaces in Canada. We are a volunteer run space that operates on anarchist principles and embraces the spirit of hacking in the broadest sense of the word. This talk will showcase our facilities and projects. It is an invitation for anarchists to attend our events, use our tools and equipment, share skills, and become involved.

Friendship Club

Meeting Room, time forthcoming

Friendship Club is a place for us to make friends with other people who are making with tech, in a way that opposes direct labour or collaboration. Instead, who are some people we can share our work and excitement with? when it comes to beyond capitalist tech? For all skill levels, especially those who might make things alone on the computer. Comrades, community or even just a container to meet new people.