Last year I had the opportunity to meet with Xeudi Chen and Pedro Oliveira, the Backslash team at Tisch’s ITP lab. At the time, I didn’t understand how the geographical relevance of their project would change so significantly in a year. Backslash is an NYU project that creates devices to protect protect protesters in countries without the democratic right to peaceful dissent.

Backslash features:

• A bandana with encoded messages that differ depending on how it’s folded and can only be unlocked when an image of the fabric is scanned with a corresponding app
• A jammer to block your signal because governments have retaliated against people whose metadata have placed them near the protest
• A geotagged panic button that warns others when violence has escalated
• A personal router for when the government has blocked cell service
• A personal black box to have a record of the protest as police crush cameras and phones – it is discrete and can’t break