Freedom of the Press Foundation is proud to announce that it will be one of eight organizations around the world hosting a Mozilla-Ford Open Web technology fellow in 2016. This full-time position will be located in San Francisco or New York and will be for ten months. Please visit Mozilla’s website to apply before March 20th.
Digital security has become a critical imperative for press freedom in the 21st century. At Freedom of the Press Foundation, we aim to ensure journalists can use technology to do their jobs safely and without the constant fear of surveillance.
Our Open Web fellow will work with our talented staff of technologists and engineers on one or a number of special projects aimed at helping journalists communicate securely with sources and whistleblowers. Here are some of the projects we’re working on now:
- SecureDrop, an open source document leaking platform focused on security that is currently used in over 20 newsrooms worldwide.
- Using machine learning to develop and analyze mitigations for traffic analysis attacks that seek to identify websites visited by users of the Tor anonymity network.
- Automating hardened deployments of open source collaboration tools like Redmine, Jitsi Meet, and Hackpad to provide a decentralized alternative to similar services offered by big corporations like GitHub, Google and Dropbox.
What are we looking for in our Open Web fellow? Well, the number one thing is technical talent, along with the ability and desire to put that talent to use helping journalists and news organizations with real-world problems.
Given the wide range of projects we’re currently tackling, the ideal candidate would have one or more of a variety of skill sets, including:
- Software engineering, especially expertise in languages like Python, Go, or Rust.
- Web development, either with Python (Django/Flask) or PHP (Drupal)
- A deep technical understanding of how the Tor anonymity network works
- UI and UX design expertise
- Experience in using, teaching, and troubleshooting open-source encryption tools
There are a lot of different projects we need help on, from developing and training journalists how to use SecureDrop, to teaching journalists how to use digital security tools and follow security best practices in newsrooms, to creating new tools and educational resources for journalists. We are also working on some yet to be announced projects that we hope to unveil later this year.
Most of all, we’re interested in candidates who are ambitious, self-directed, and ready to dive into complex and state-of-the-art technical problems in digital security today. We want our fellow to bring their own ideas for how they can use technology to protect press freedoms as well.
If you have an interest in helping journalists work safely and communicate securely, then we encourage you to apply for the fellowship by going to Mozilla’s website.