July 2020

Sending a file from one computer to another is common and should be simple, but it can be surprisingly complicated, even in 2020.  Meeting this common need for simple, secure file transfer is where Magic Wormhole comes in. 

This year, we were awarded funding from the NGI Trust program to explore commercial opportunities for Magic Wormhole. We’ve named this project, MW4ALL—Magic Wormhole for All. Our objective is to investigate how to develop a sustainable product built on Magic Wormhole and to determine how to scale it technically without compromising the security or the important aspects of decentralization.

In other words, how do we bring Magic Wormhole to the masses for everyone to enjoy safe and simple file sharing?

At CogX 2020, Least Authority CEO Liz Steininger joined a panel of thought leaders in tech &  privacy to discuss the impact of surveillance and related themes in the context of a global pandemic and organized resistance to systemic oppression. 

With climate change accelerating every minute of every day; infectious diseases reaching into every corner of the Earth; and human rights, clean water, and education still being a luxury for some of the most vulnerable members of our society, we need to rethink the very basis of how we organise, make decisions, and structure the world’s governance. Privacy preservation and adaptive organisations have never been more important.

At RightsCon 2020, user researcher Allon Bar represented Least Authority in an interactive strategy session about making technology people-driven, with an emphasis on user research. Allon highlighted our Tahoe-LAFS project supported by the Open Technology Fund as a case study to show session participants what a user research project can look like, what stages it entails, and what purposes it can serve.

Least Authority organized this skills-building workshop together with The Citizen Lab (at the University of Toronto) and the International Association of Women in Radio and Television.