For several years, I've been honored to volunteer on the advisory board of Simply Secure (previously) a nonprofit consultancy that does open research on usability in cryptographic privacy tools and consults with firms to help make their tools more broadly usable and accessible, especially for vulnerable groups who are often left out of consideration when secure tools are being designed.

Simply Secure is a nonprofit whose advisory board I volunteer for; they're devoted to making usable, human-centered interfaces to privacy tools that anyone can use, and they're hiring.

The Googler Uprising was a string of employee actions within Google over a series of issues related to ethics and business practices, starting with the company's AI project for US military drones, then its secretive work on a censored/surveilling search tool for use in China; then the $80m payout to Android founder Andy Rubin after he was accused of multiple sexual assaults.

Meredith Whittaker (previously) and Claire Stapleton were two of the principal organizers of the mass googler walkouts over the company's coverup and rewarding of sexual assault and harassment, as well as other Google employee actions over the company's involvement in drone warfare and Chinese censorship; now, in a widely circulated letter to colleagues, they say that they have been targeted for retaliation by Google management.

Scout Brody is executive director of Simply Secure, a nonprofit that works to make security and privacy technologies usable by technologically unsophisticated people by focusing on usability and human factors.

Writing on Medium, AI researcher Kate Crawford (previously) and Simply Secure (previously) co-founder Meredith Whittaker make the case for a new scholarly discipline that "measures and assesses the social and economic effects of current AI systems."

Meredith from Simply Secure writes, "Artificial Intelligence is already with us, and the White House and New York University's Information Law Institute are hosting a major public symposium to face what the social and economic impacts might be. AI Now, happening July 7th in New York City, will address the real world impacts of AI systems in the next next 5-10 years."

In 1989, Canadian activist, engineer and thinker Ursula Franklin gave a series of extraordinary lectures on the politics of technology design and deployment called "The Real World of Technology."

Scout Sinclair Brody (previously) is executive director of Simply Secure, a nonprofit I volunteer for that works on impriving the usability of privacy tools so that normal people can understand and benefit from them.

As you know, Apple just said no to the FBI's request for a backdoor in the iPhone, bringing more public attention to the already hot discussion on encryption, civil liberties, and whether “those in authority” should have the ability to see private content and communications -- what's referred to as “exceptional access.”[1]

Another amazing Shmoocon talk is "Users Are People Too: How to Make Your Tools Not Suck for Humans," presented by two key people from Simply Secure, a nonprofit devoted to improving security tool usability (I am a volunteer advisor to Simply Secure).

Whether you want to take your career up a notch or simply secure your computer against hackers, this course bundle is for you. Don't worry if you don't know much about programming or coding, this set of lessons will drop major knowledge on you even if you're a beginner, ramping up your skills from zero to cyber-hero. — Read the rest

Simply Secure, a nonprofit I volunteer for, is launching a new series of usability programs for organizations, companies and individuals who are making cryptographic/privacy/security tools.

An excellent essay by Penn law prof Jeffrey Vagle describes how the deployment of really easy-to-use, good crypto by Google and Apple is a game-changing shift in the ability of ordinary people to be secure from snooping by crooks, spies (and yes, cops), but how that isn't enough, by a long stretch.

The Open Technology Fund and Simply Secure are offering fellowships to researchers who seek funding to work on usability in privacy and security technology.

Measurement Lab, an open, independent analysis organization devoted to measuring the quality of Internet connections and detecting censorship, technical faults and network neutrality violations, has released a major new report on how ISPs connect to one another, and it's not pretty.

Simply Secure, a nonprofit developing usable, free, open interfaces for cryptographic communications tools like OTR, is hiring!

My latest Guardian column, Privacy technology everyone can use would make us all more secure, makes the case for privacy technology as something that anyone can — and should use, discussing the work being done by the charitable Simply Secure foundation that launches today (site is not yet up as of this writing), with the mandate to create usable interfaces to cryptographic tools, and to teach crypto developers how to make their tools accessible to non-technical people.