[liberationtech] [Cryptography] Stanford Liberationtech Needs Your Help

[R0b0t1]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 2:13 PM, Yosem Companys <ycompanys at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> The Program on Liberation Technologies at Stanford University (LT) has been
> going strong since circa 2006. Since then, LT has helped thousands design,
> use, and research technologies that foster the public good.
>
> Recently, the decision was made to spin off LT as an independent entity. I'm
> one of the people tasked with doing so. Here are LT's major needs:
>
> Recruit people to develop a new website, logo, and graphics.
> Identify a legal jurisdiction with strong security and privacy laws and
> regulations and a server provider with a stellar reputation at protecting
> user security and privacy to host the site.
> Determine whether to maintain LT's mailing lists on Mailman or to transition
> them to a content management system (e.g., Discourse.org).
> Assess the best legal structure for LT (e.g., digital cooperative).
>
> Any ideas? Thanks for your help and advice.
>

Unless you are looking to attract the naive I would include:

1) information on specific examples of the good wrought, or a link to
a list of those things;
2) information on project leadership and assets, and
3) information on why I should care.

The latest media I can find on that site seems to be from 2015.


As to your questions:

1) If the majority of the correspondents will be based in the US you
should use US-based hosting. Using hosting in any other country means
your private data can be inspected without a warrant as those who
possess it are not US citizens and have no fourth amendment rights.

Ideally those correspondents who are US citizens would always have
their fourth amendment rights, but I am not sure how the law is
interpreted. The above is the one that confers the least privacy.

2) If you have users that are averse to a mailing list you can find
software that integrates a forum with a mailing list. I strongly
recommend using a mailing list. Having had to use discourse for
product support with other communities I find it very clunky. Note
that most forum software retains the "send me an email on new posts"
option because users are more likely to see an email than a new post.

3) Do you mean an actual legal structure? What assets need to be
controlled, and what is the purpose of the organization? How many
people will be in charge, why, and what will they do?

If you mean a legal organization, an LLC will likely be the least
trouble until you can find professionals to donate their time to
accounting and organization.


The answers above depend heavily on what you want to do and who you
want to work with. E.g. I could readily see ignoring my suggestion in
#2 if you mainly recruit younger people who do not have a deep
technology background.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1