Now

The projects of mine that I’m currently focused on, as of…

November 2017

Since April 2017 I have been maniacally focused on building and coordinating the building of the Pursuance System, a non-profit of which I am the Project Manager and technical lead. But let me back up.

Pursuance is a project started by formerly-imprisoned activist and journalist Barrett Brown. He successfully exposed corruption and was targeted by the state (especially the DOJ), and spent 4 years in jail.

He got out a year ago (November 2016). In March I was reading a Wired magazine article that said that Barrett was out of jail, doing epic stuff again, and that he was envisioning an end-to-end encrypted environment meant to amplify the efforts of activists, journalists, and non-profits. That aligned extremely well with what I was doing (namely secure apps for activists and journalists built on work I presented at DEF CON 2 years ago), so I jumped on a plane, met him in Texas, flew back to CA, and 2 days later he emailed the other people involved and said something like, “this is Steve Phillips based in SF, and he is now in charge of building the Pursuance System.”

Core feature set for the first launch, which is planned for 1-2 months from now: end-to-end encrypted task management, chat, and file-sharing. I’m excited about adding some semi-automation features (“if task X hasn’t been finished in 3 days, reassign it to someone else”), the ability to create a task then specify the skills necessary to complete it then ask the system to find the best person in the ecosystem to do that task, the ability for one group (“pursuance”) to assign a task to another group as to enable this ecosystem of aligned activists that can help each other out and play each other’s strengths.

At this point we are focused on organizing activists, journalists, and non-profits in order to solve serious problems we face as a society – the surveillance state, the police state, the drug war, and many more.

Fundamentally, we aim to confront and correct, via an energetic, global network of forward-thinking individuals, the injustices imposed on society by criminalized institutions the world over.

Much more info about Pursuance can be found at https://pursuanceproject.org/ and https://gist.github.com/elimisteve/452f68191295362d76cbdfc09543fc01 .

March 2016

CrypTag

CrypTag encrypts your data and makes it searchable by tag/keyword. I announced it at DEF CON 23 in August of 2015 (slides). On March 3, 2016 I launched a CrypTag web app for Sandstorm, and that same week I launched CrypTag Scope for Ubuntu Phone, from which you can access your (encrypted) passwords and notes.

I’m currently creating a CrypTag-based group password manager, and another app for accessing arbitrary files from all your devices + sharing them with others.

Here’s the CrypTag GitHub repo and the new @_cryptag_ Twitter account.

Currently, my sole focus is CrypTag and related techno-activist work, like giving talks/workshops and understanding the needs of vulnerable users (like activists and journalists).

CryptActiv

CryptActiv: Secure apps for activists.

CryptActiv was announced at this talk/workshop on March 13, 2016.

December 2015

• Executable Philosophy, a new philosophical methodology that enables us to compute philosophical facts. See ExecutablePhilosophy.org for an introductory video (+ slides), code examples, and more.

• CrypTag, which encrypts your data and makes it searchable by tag/keyword. I announced it at DEF CON 23 in August of 2015 (slides). Currently using it as the foundation of a password manager I’m developing. (If you want to join the next round of beta testers, email me!) Here’s the CrypTag GitHub repo.

• Cloakcast, a chat system that not only hides what you’re saying (using encryption), but when you’re saying it (slides describing an early version). The latest incarnation also hides who you’re chatting with. (Clients encrypt their real message alongside decoy messages, then send one message to each of many other users.) Code coming soon.

This page was inspired by sivers.org/nowff.