We’re here to make security easy and fun.
Internet software links us to our friends, allows us to transact across oceans, and forms a digital space for culture and society. Because these technologies provide forums for sensitive discourse and expression, we are all concerned about their security and privacy – but don’t always know what to do about it.
In fact, when security-enhancing functionality exists, it often seems to add an extra layer of complexity. Under these circumstances, how can an average person tell how a given feature works – or validate that security claims are true at all?
That’s why we’ve created Simply Secure: to help develop security and privacy tools that make this choice clear, easy, and available to everyone.
Our founding principles
- The future of a positive, accessible, and people-centered Internet requires trustworthy privacy and security.
- If privacy and security aren’t easy and intuitive, they don’t work. Usability is key.
- Technology should respect the user’s desire for privacy and security.
- Users shouldn’t have to choose between services they like and services that are secure; they should be able to easily adopt privacy and security solutions for existing services.
There are already many credible and exciting software-development efforts that aim to make privacy and security ubiquitous. Rather than create redundant initiatives, we will focus on supporting existing open source work by providing usability and development expertise, direct ties to user communities, connections to funding sources, and other resources.
To build trust and ensure quality outcomes, one core component of our work will be public audits of interfaces and code. This will help validate the security and usability claims of the efforts we support.
More generally, we aim to take a page from the open-source community and make as much of our work transparent and widely accessible as possible. This means that as we get into the nitty-gritty of learning how to build collaborations around usably secure software, we will share our developing methodologies and expertise publicly. Over time, this will build a body of community resources that will allow all projects in this space to become more usable and more secure.
We hope that this effort will result in more pleasing and robust tools that meet users’ privacy and security needs where they are – from layering additional security on top of popular name-brand cloud platforms, to augmenting small, stand-alone mobile apps.
We’re excited to be launching, and hope you will contact us or follow us on Twitter if you’re interested in learning more and getting involved.