In an effort to make open source security tools more user friendly, Google and Dropbox announced Thursday that they have teamed up with the Open Technology Fund to form “Simply Secure.” The goal of the new non-profit organization is to “help craft usably secure technologies and make them available for everyone.”
This is the second time this week a major technology company has launched an open source initiative. On Monday, Facebook announced its new TODO initiative, which is focused on developing best practices and tools to support open source development between companies. Google and Dropbox are also participating in the TODO collaboration.
The companies said the importance of providing easy-to-use secure tools has become increasingly important following revelations by Edward Snowden that the NSA, GCHQ, Unit 2800 and other spy agencies penetrated numerous technology organizations and collected personal data from millions of people.
Making Security Tools Usable
Both Google and Dropbox have received negative press over their participation in the NSA’s covert mass surveillance program, PRISM. Dropbox has also been criticized for electing Condoleezza Rice, the former National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush and outspoken supporter of warrantless wiretapping, to its board of directors.
Nevertheless, both Dropbox and Google promoted the benefit of putting more privacy tools in the hands of users in public statements backing Simply Secure.
“Security shouldn’t come at the expense of simplicity or design, and you shouldn’t have to be a tech expert to stay protected online,” Dropbox said in a post on its corporate blog about the new initiative. The company released the first of its semi-annual privacy transparency reports last week, detailing requests to access client data from government agencies.
“People shouldn’t have to make a trade-off between security and ease of use,” Google said on its open source blog. “We’re excited for a future where people won’t have to choose between ease and security, and where tools that allow people to secure their communications, content, and online activity are as easy as choosing to use them.”
Improving Existing Tools
According to its Web site, Simply Secure aims to bring security experts and user interface designers together to create effective open source security tools that are simple and easy enough that users will actually adopt them. “If privacy and security aren’t easy and intuitive, they don’t work. Usability is key,” the organization said on its blog.
A variety of security tools and procedures already proliferate the marketplace. The problem is that they are too cumbersome for most users to implement, according to Simply Secure. Tools such as two-step authentication, for example, may be extremely effective security measures, but their overall impacts are hampered by limited adoption by users. (continued…)
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