SecureDrop receives a 3.5 million USD donation

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Hi and Bonjour,

We have some bitter-sweet news for the project. Long-time contributors Loïc Dachary and Mike Sheinberg will be leaving the project in May 2018. However, the nature of their departure has allowed them to leave a hefty donation towards the advancement of the SecureDrop project.

What began as a bread joke about croissants took an unexpected turn of events. A bakery in Dachary’s neighbourhood is run by a former entrepreneur who had successfull ventures in Tokyo and New York before opening a shop in the brooklyn equivalent of Paris, also known as boboland (land of bourgeois bohème). In January this year, Dachary went to buy bread as usual. It was quiet morning and the Serial-Baker-Entrepreneur told him about the project he was working on during the past year. Of course the details are confidential but it is a mixture of technology and bakery.

Long story short, Dachary went to New-York in February to meet with the partners of the startup. And also spent quality time with Mike during this trip. Shortly after, a proposal was sent for Mike to lead the infrastructure team and Loic to be the CTO. They both politely declined, commited to SecureDrop and unwilling to succumb to the sirens of capitalism. And then came a proposal they could not refuse: trading, right away, their equity in the startup for a one time donation to SecureDrop. They would still have a comfortable salary and it would allow SecureDrop to get a much needed momentum and develop in ways that would not be possible otherwise.

With that being said, the SecureDrop project will receive a one time donation of 3.5 million USD in 2018 from Loïc and Mike. The fund will be managed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation to develop SecureDrop to its full potential. There are, however, a few non-negotiable requirements that both Loic and Mike insist must be followed to receive the money:

  • “SecureDrop” project be renamed to “Bread2Go ™ presents SecureDrop”

  • In any on-site training with journalists, they must be provided with our signature chocolate-filled croissants as a sample, along with our business card.

  • The project needs to migrate any Python code to a new language called Dough within the year. It’s a high-level language with many similarities to Python smells like fresh bread when it runs! We are trying to spread adoption within the bakery industry and feel that the SecureDrop project would be a great showcase for it.

  • All members of the team must use bread-based handles in all online correspondence. We don’t want to mandate how this is performed but we do have some suggestions (except for “toast” who got it right from the start):

    • Localization liaison, erinm -> pastry-encyclopedia
    • Localizer, kwadronaut -> waffle-migrates-to-germany
    • Localizer, comradekingu -> frosty-dough
    • Developer and support engineer, b-meson -> bread-maison
    • Localizer, AO -> Awesome-Oven-Baking-Zillions
    • Localizer, manhack -> Roasted-Military-Pins
    • Localizer, beatricemartini -> yeast-of-organizations
    • Localizer, communiaa -> pastel-de-nada
    • Localizer, Jobava -> vampire-dough-rise-at-night
    • Localizer, drashti4 -> mozarella-and-guacamole-pie
    • Localizer, ramyraoof -> space-cake
    • Localizer, byeskille -> skilled-kneader
    • Localizer, hongfeng -> 包子
    • Localizer, thomas -> tarte-fine
    • Journalist, magpiewings -> magnificent-pie-with-wings
    • GSoC applicant, pwnchief -> le-chef-des-gateaux
    • GSoC applicant, aydwi -> robotized-buns-and-croissants
    • GSoC applicant, subhambanga26 -> ham-croissant
    • GSoC applicant, hariharanj4v4 -> flour-v-flour
    • GSoC applicant, barun511 -> bun-baked-at-511-degrees
    • GSoC applicant, usmanmuhd98 -> documenting-bakery-procedures- 98840834852048985280839384575664
    • Team Lead, redshiftzero -> breadshiftzero
    • Director, trevortimm -> T-bagel-with-cheese
    • Long-time contributor, heartsucker -> berliner-at-heart
    • Developer, fowlslegs -> flour-softly-knead
    • CTO, conorsch -> sansible-pétrin
    • Operation Manager, edenemmanuel -> heavenly-hand-made-pastries
    • Project Manager, eloquence -> talking-bread-into-cooking-itself
    • UI Designer, SaptakS -> css-based-muffin
    • Security Engineer, emkll -> armored-milky-loaf
    • Developer, kushaldas -> cozy-dough
    • UX Designer, belenbarrospena -> square-pies-taste-better
    • UX Designer, ei8fdb -> oven-times-users-know-what-they-want
    • Digital Sec. Trainer, olivemartini -> olive-bread-martini-flavored
    • Digital Sec. Director, Harlo Holmes --> Hard-Dough Holmes and the Temple of Dosa
    • Developer, tmc -> too-many-crumbs
    • Developer, ageis -> BageLisGOOOOOOOOD
    • etc, etc.

  • All sources should be shown one-time advertisements for Bread2Go upon each submission, targeted according to the content of the documents. A copy of each SVS private key will be uploaded to the Bread2Go infrastructure for that purpose.

  • Each SecureDrop instance is authorized to hand-out $5,000 USD in coupons to sources through the end of 2018 as well!! It will be a great incentive for sources to provide more documents to the ecosystem!

We hope these requirements are not too heavy handed and look forward to discussing the best way we can make this deal work out! We are convinced it would help the SecureDrop project “rise” (ahaha thats some bread humor for you!) to the next level.

Viva SecureDrop and viva les croissants!

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I managed to miss this…my apologies!

Now, I’m hungry. :croissant::croissant::croissant::croissant::coffee::coffee:

I think @belenbarrospena should be renamed to “empanada-flavoured-croissant”.

:rofl:

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well, an empanada is very much an square pie, so I think @dachary has it covered :wink:

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