The Open Source Path to Security and Privacy: Divvi Up and Let's Encrypt

In this episode, Sarah Gran and Brandon Pitman from the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) dive into their projects, Divvi Up and Let's Encrypt. They discuss the creation and impact of Divvi Up, a privacy-preserving metrics aggregation service, and its role in protecting individual data while providing valuable insights to organizations. They share the journey from collaborating with Google and Apple on COVID-19 exposure notifications to enhancing privacy for Firefox users. The conversation also explores the importance of TLS certificates provided by Let's Encrypt and the challenges and advancements in the realm of online privacy.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introductions

01:22 Overview of DivviUp

02:29 Privacy Concerns and Data Security

06:18 Real-World Applications and Examples

11:28 Technical Details and Protocols

19:53 Open Source and Community Involvement

20:39 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

 

Guests:

Sarah Gran is the Vice President of the Brand and Donor Development team at Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), the nonprofit entity behind Let's Encrypt, the world's largest certificate authority. Sarah joined ISRG in early 2016, shortly after the Let’s Encrypt launch and has helped it become a household name in software development. Sarah has also helped to shape ISRG’s latest projects, one focused on bringing memory-safe code to security-sensitive software, called Prossimo, and a privacy-respecting metrics service, called Divvi Up.Sarah is an independent member of the Tor Project’s Board of Directors. Previously, Sarah worked as a Vice President at Edelman SF and Deutsch NY in brand and communications strategy groups.

Brandon Pitman is the Senior Software Engineer for Divvi Up and has a Master’s in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. Prior to ISRG, they worked at Google on a variety of Security, Privacy, and Green Energy projects. Bran came to ISRG to be a part of improving the privacy stance of the Internet as a whole.