Keynote from goto: Our Responsibility to Defeat Mass Surveillance

In our keynote for goto 2014, Erik and I consider our responsibilities as software professionals towards combatting the growing tide of mass surveillance. We talk about how software professionals should take a greater role in deciding what software to build, which requires us to have a greater knowledge of the domain and responsibility towards our users and the greater society. We say why privacy is important, both as a human need and for the maintenance of a democratic society. We use the example of email to explore the importance of an open, collaborative development approach for key infrastructure, and argue our freedoms require a greater level of encryption for all of us together with move to decentralize. We finish with a brief mention of “Pixelated”, a project ThoughtWorks is doing to increase the use of encrypted email and why its challenges are much more about UX than the details of cryptography.