Sam Hafferty Online

I'm a communicator and researcher thinking about privacy and connectivity. You can find me on Mastodon, Wikipedia, or via e-mail at: second (at) disroot (dot) org.

Current Projects

In progress...


WiFi Whispers

August 2024

As my final project for a course called The Musical Web at the School for Poetic Computation, I made a sonified internet speed connection test. Find a live demo on my old site and the repo on Codeberg.

A gif showing white text in the center which reads 'NUMBER secrets per second' where NUMBER is a changing value. The background is dark blue with scattered white dots that change location every second.

discernible.tech

August 2023 through May 2024

A real-time data exploration tool for mapping routes around police surveillance infrastructure in Brooklyn, NY. Find the documentation site at this link of the same name and a presentation video on Vimeo. Completed under guidance of Luisa Pereira.

An image of a mobile phone being held up towards the sky with a dot filled map on its screen. In the background a surveillance camera mounted to a utility pole is visible. The image has an overlayed graphic which includes a red box outline around the surveillance camera leading by way of a thin red line to a single dot on the screen of the mobile device.

Gaza eSIM Tracker

March 2024 through May 2024

A research project and documentation website, available on my other site, that followed communications in Gaza, Palestine since October 7th, 2023 produced in collaboration with developer Jou-An Chen, designer Kashvi Jain and data analyst Yubang under guidance from Justin Hendrix.

A screenshot of a webpage showing a timeline of events, with one date, October 31, 2024, highlighted and an image below it showing a wifi symbol amid a destoryed landscape with the colors of the Palestine flag filling the image and a caption that reads 'ISPs went offline'

slowchat

October 2023 through December 2023

A slow paper-based TCP video chat made in collaboration with Jo Suk. This was a semester-long project made in Mark Lam's course titled "Re-Decentralizing the Internet". Learn more on our GitHub repo.

Photo of a robotic mechanism in wooden casing with a small printer atop and a small paper shredder below, paper coming out of the printer is fed into the shredder and shown shredded below.

Insecam Roulette

October 2023 through December 2023

Automated insecam based chat app. Concept by ylang cao. Final project for Molly Soda's "Streaming Against the Current" course. Learn more on the GitHub repo.

Screencap of a website with a livestreamed camera feed & accompaying chat room. The stream seems to change based on web visitor location.

ShotSpotter Analysis

October 2023 through December 2023

A data analysis of Chicago's use of the algorithmic policing tool "ShotSpotter". This was a final project for a course titled "Data Analysis, Mapping & Storytelling" taught by Lucy Block & Patrick Spauster. Read the full data story on Medium.

Digital graphic of a blue map with yellow outlines of zip code. The map showcased policing infrastructure alongside racial makeup per zip code.

Papernet

March 2023 through May 2023

A small network between users around the world and a single thermal printer in NYC. Made as a final project for Shawn Van Every's course titled "Live Web". Learn more on the project GitHub repo.

Photo of a robotic mechanism in wooden casing with a small printer atop and a small paper shredder below, paper coming out of the printer is fed into the shredder and shown shredded below.