ThoughtWorks
  • Contact
  • Español
  • Português
  • Deutsch
  • 中文
Go to overview
  • Engineering Culture, Delivery Mindset

    Embrace a modern approach to software development and deliver value faster

    Intelligence-Driven Decision Making

    Leverage your data assets to unlock new sources of value

  • Frictionless Operating Model

    Improve your organization's ability to respond to change

    Platform Strategy

    Create adaptable technology platforms that move with your business strategy

  • Experience Design and Product Capability

    Rapidly design, deliver and evolve exceptional products and experiences

    Partnerships

    Leveraging our network of trusted partners to amplify the outcomes we deliver for our clients

Go to overview
  • Automotive
  • Cleantech, Energy and Utilities
  • Financial Services and Insurance
  • Healthcare
  • Media and Publishing
  • Not-for-profit
  • Public Sector
  • Retail and E-commerce
  • Travel and Transport
Go to overview

Featured

  • Technology

    An in-depth exploration of enterprise technology and engineering excellence

  • Business

    Keep up to date with the latest business and industry insights for digital leaders

  • Culture

    The place for career-building content and tips, and our view on social justice and inclusivity

Digital Publications and Tools

  • Technology Radar

    An opinionated guide to technology frontiers

  • Perspectives

    A publication for digital leaders

  • Digital Fluency Model

    A model for prioritizing the digital capabilities needed to navigate uncertainty

  • Decoder

    The business execs' A-Z guide to technology

All Insights

  • Articles

    Expert insights to help your business grow

  • Blogs

    Personal perspectives from ThoughtWorkers around the globe

  • Books

    Explore our extensive library

  • Podcasts

    Captivating conversations on the latest in business and tech

Go to overview
  • Application process

    What to expect as you interview with us

  • Grads and career changers

    Start your tech career on the right foot

  • Search jobs

    Find open positions in your region

  • Stay connected

    Sign up for our monthly newsletter

Go to overview
  • Conferences and Events
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
  • Open Source
  • Our Leaders
  • Social Change
  • Español
  • Português
  • Deutsch
  • 中文
ThoughtWorksMenu
  • Close   ✕
  • What we do
  • Who we work with
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • About
  • Contact
  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Engineering Culture, Delivery Mindset

    Embrace a modern approach to software development and deliver value faster

  • Experience Design and Product Capability

    Rapidly design, deliver and evolve exceptional products and experiences

  • Frictionless Operating Model

    Improve your organization's ability to respond to change

  • Intelligence-Driven Decision Making

    Leverage your data assets to unlock new sources of value

  • Partnerships

    Leveraging our network of trusted partners to amplify the outcomes we deliver for our clients

  • Platform Strategy

    Create adaptable technology platforms that move with your business strategy

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Automotive
  • Cleantech, Energy and Utilities
  • Financial Services and Insurance
  • Healthcare
  • Media and Publishing
  • Not-for-profit
  • Public Sector
  • Retail and E-commerce
  • Travel and Transport
  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Featured

  • Technology

    An in-depth exploration of enterprise technology and engineering excellence

  • Business

    Keep up to date with the latest business and industry insights for digital leaders

  • Culture

    The place for career-building content and tips, and our view on social justice and inclusivity

  • Digital Publications and Tools

  • Technology Radar

    An opinionated guide to technology frontiers

  • Perspectives

    A publication for digital leaders

  • Digital Fluency Model

    A model for prioritizing the digital capabilities needed to navigate uncertainty

  • Decoder

    The business execs' A-Z guide to technology

  • All Insights

  • Articles

    Expert insights to help your business grow

  • Blogs

    Personal perspectives from ThoughtWorkers around the globe

  • Books

    Explore our extensive library

  • Podcasts

    Captivating conversations on the latest in business and tech

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Application process

    What to expect as you interview with us

  • Grads and career changers

    Start your tech career on the right foot

  • Search jobs

    Find open positions in your region

  • Stay connected

    Sign up for our monthly newsletter

  • Back
  • Close   ✕
  • Go to overview
  • Conferences and Events
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • News
  • Open Source
  • Our Leaders
  • Social Change
Blogs
Select a topic
View all topicsClose
Technology 
Agile Project Management Cloud Continuous Delivery  Data Science & Engineering Defending the Free Internet Evolutionary Architecture Experience Design IoT Languages, Tools & Frameworks Legacy Modernization Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Microservices Platforms Security Software Testing Technology Strategy 
Business 
Financial Services Global Health Innovation Retail  Transformation 
Careers 
Career Hacks Diversity & Inclusion Social Change 
Blogs

Topics

Choose a topic
  • Technology
    Technology
  • Technology Overview
  • Agile Project Management
  • Cloud
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Data Science & Engineering
  • Defending the Free Internet
  • Evolutionary Architecture
  • Experience Design
  • IoT
  • Languages, Tools & Frameworks
  • Legacy Modernization
  • Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence
  • Microservices
  • Platforms
  • Security
  • Software Testing
  • Technology Strategy
  • Business
    Business
  • Business Overview
  • Financial Services
  • Global Health
  • Innovation
  • Retail
  • Transformation
  • Careers
    Careers
  • Careers Overview
  • Career Hacks
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Social Change
SecurityDefending the Free InternetSan FranciscoDiversity & InclusionTechnologyCareers

Dissent, Privacy and Information Access in San Francisco

Jack Singleton Jack Singleton

Published: Apr 10, 2014

The battle over freedom of information is one of the leading issues of our time, and the San Francisco office is part of the movement to protect our right to dissent, privacy, and information access. Between regularly scheduled internal meets and more focused events with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), one of the leading organizations in the United States on privacy, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), the office has become a busy place. Some highlights include weekly meets exploring a wide range of privacy related topics, getting to know many members of the EFF and FPF, and a SecureDrop Hackathon in the San Francisco office.

Above: Rainey Reitman talks to a room of EFFers and TWers about what we can do to promote rights online.

Internally we’ve been holding weekly “InSecurity” nights each Tuesday to focus and discuss the current issues around freedom and privacy on the internet. We’ve had a fairly wide range of informal sessions, starting off with a great mathematical breakdown of cryptography by Chris Schuster (Developer). We have also explored how Tor works, held a crypto party (signing gpg keys), and watched recordings from ReDecentralize.net (a movement to revive the decentralized nature of the internet) and 30C3 (Chaos Computer Congress 2013, a conference that blends hackers, technology, and politics). More recently, we’ve gone through the dev environment setup for SecureDrop - which we will dig into more deeply in upcoming sessions.

One of the most popular suggestions to come out of our first InSecurity night was to meet up with people at the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) - arguably the go to organization for all issues regarding privacy and freedom on the internet - which is based right here in San Francisco. Luckily, Amit Kaul (Regional Director, @amitk_tw), and Jonny Leroy (@jahnnie) were already on it, and have been in steady contact with, among others, Trevor Timm, formerly of the EFF and co-founder of FPF (Freedom of the Press Foundation).

Trevor came to talk at our last home office happy hour about SecureDrop, a project started by Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen, which a few of us at TW have been getting involved in. SecureDrop is a tool to allow journalists to accept documents from sources anonymously. It’s open source software, and designed to be hosted by the news organization directly. This model prevents the seizure of records from third party service providers, and provides alternatives to (still very admirable) centralized services such as WikiLeaks.

We had a lot of enthusiasm around the office, so with the help of some great networking by Grant Joung (SF director / software delivery partner), managed to schedule a dedicated event here at the office to get to know the EFF and FPF. This event was a huge success, with a great showing from both ThoughtWorks and our guests. In true ThoughtWorks fashion we gathered a bunch of smart, enthusiastic people into a room, added some beer, and let the ideas flow.

Among the things to come out of that evening was the decision to host a SecureDrop Hackathon right here in the San Francisco office. There was already a hackathon planned to take place at MIT, but by hosting a coordinated hackathon at ThoughtWorks we could foster participation on both coasts in one go. Even though it was short notice, it was a great opportunity for us to step up and help out. Thanks to keen interest from Rosalie Tolentino (@rosatolen), Vladimir Zelmanov (Developer), and Sophie Krisch (Junior Developer) we had enough support to host a public hackathon. Will Ducey (@will_ducey) and Pam Ocampo (Caffeinated Coder, @pmocampo) helped get the word out through social media, and Rainey Reitman from the EFF even gave us a shout out at a panel event in Berkeley - alongside Daniel Ellsberg!

The hackathon ended up being a huge success. Garrett Robinson, the lead developer for SecureDrop, decided to stay in San Francisco - and we set up a video conference with the team at MIT. In all we had about 15 people working on SecureDrop on Saturday. The diversity of work done was amazing. One of the big accomplishments was setting up vagrant for developer setup. What used to be a fairly long and error prone developer setup process is now as simple as “clone the repo, install vagrant, vagrant up." 

On the other hand, on Sunday Craig Wattrus (Developer) was working on the user interface and user experience. He developed some great mockups to bring the UI into the modern world. Back on the deployment side of things, Chris Ng (DevOps) got deep into ops land and added GPG encryption of OSSEC email alerts to prevent eavesdroppers from getting access to potential security vulnerabilities. Many others came by and paired, set up dev environments, and dug into the code. A big thanks to everyone who came along and helped make the event happen.

Looking forward, I hope this is only the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between ThoughtWorks and the EFF, FPF, and SecureDrop. To keep the ball rolling, we will be having hack nights every other week on Tuesday evening. There is lots of work to be done, and lots of ways to contribute.

If you couldn’t make it the the hackathon, consider coming to a hack night.

Events

Learn more about and participate in our thought-leadership events across the world.

Find out more
  • What we do
  • Who we work with
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • About
  • Contact

WeChat

×
QR code to ThoughtWorks China WeChat subscription account

Media and analyst relations | Privacy policy | Modern Slavery statement ThoughtWorks| Accessibility | © 2021 ThoughtWorks, Inc.