"To Serve The People: Public Interest Technologists" by Matt Mitchell

### Overview In this presentation, technologist and hacker Matt Mitchell discusses the emergence and necessity of "Public Interest Technologists." Drawing parallels to the evolution of public interest law funded by philanthropic institutions in the 1960s and 1970s, Mitchell addresses the brain drain of engineering talent toward large commercial tech companies. He challenges developers and security practitioners to examine whether their daily work aligns with their values and details practical avenues—including grants, fellowships, specialized conferences, and corporate volunteer policies—for technologists to support civil society, marginalized communities, human rights defenders, and investigative journalists.

### Key Topics - **Aligning Work with Personal Values**: Mitchell shares his personal journey from early hacking and roles at CNN and The New York Times to realizing his technical skills could directly protect vulnerable populations. Key catalyst events included the killing of Trayvon Martin, the Edward Snowden surveillance revelations, and the killing of Michael Brown. - **Grassroots Digital Security and Crypto Harlem**: Mitchell recounts creating Crypto Harlem in a neighborhood community center to teach practical encryption and digital safety to local residents, analogizing encryption to essential literacy. - **The Public Interest Technologist Model**: Exploring how funding consortia like NetGain (comprising the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Knight Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Mozilla) invest millions to embed technologists in civil society, public policy, and government. - **Funding and Grant Opportunities**: Practical options for technologists wanting to launch open-source, public-interest tools, highlighting the Open Technology Fund (OTF), Open Knowledge International, and Fight for the Future's A-Teams. - **Fellowships and Policy Integration**: Fellowships providing pathways into social impact work, such as the Mozilla Open Web Fellowship, TechCongress, Code for America, Institute for the Future, and New America's Cybersecurity Initiative. - **Alternative Engagement Paths**: Engaging through global conferences (such as RightsCon, Chaos Computer Club, Internet Freedom Festival, and Allied Media Conference) or utilizing corporate paid volunteer time and pro bono allowances at existing employers.

### Technical Details - **Signal and Cryptographic Funding**: Mitchell highlights Signal's initial support from the Open Technology Fund, noting how its double ratchet encryption scheme became a foundational privacy technology subsequently adopted and paid for by platforms like WhatsApp and Google to maintain Signal as a free tool. - **Operational and Tactical Security Training**: Mitchell's work with Global Journalist Security involves operational security (OpSec) and InfoSec drills simulating high-stress scenarios (hostile environments, phishing, phone spoofing, and physical kidnapping) to prepare reporters and activists. - **Zero-Day Discovery in Civil Society**: Mitchell details a case study from Access Now's digital safety helpdesk. Mexican activists working on a soda tax campaign received suspicious messages, which Access Now escalated to Citizen Lab in Toronto. Citizen Lab identified an undisclosed iOS exploit sold by NSO Group (costing around $650,000 for ten targets) that gave attackers remote access to the camera and microphone. The finding was responsibly disclosed to Apple, which patched the zero-day vulnerability. - **Secure Tooling Ecosystem**: The talk emphasizes supporting tools critical to activist safety, including Tails OS, Tor, encrypted communication systems, and hardening application security against targeted surveillance.

### Takeaways - Technologists possess outsized leverage through software and security expertise, which can be applied to defend civil liberties and at-risk communities. - A robust ecosystem of grants (OTF, Open Knowledge) and fellowships (Mozilla, TechCongress, Ford Foundation) exists to financially support technical contributors outside Big Tech. - Direct involvement does not require quitting a job immediately; engineers can contribute via conferences, open-source bug fixes, UX design improvements for privacy tools, and employer-sponsored volunteer programs.