Aaron

@aaronsnow
549 Followers
252 Following
148 Posts
Believelander in DC. Gen-X nerd. 50% dadjokes.

By day: helping governments serve people better, currently courtesy AWS. Prev: Faculty Fellow at Georgetown's Beeck Center, CEO of the Government of Canada's Canadian Digital Service, Exec Director of 18F, Presidential Innovation Fellow 2013, Voter Protection Partners, Daring/Arro, Microsoft.
homepagehttps://aaronsnow.net
emailaaronsnow at gmail
AaronSep 7, 2025
Shot: "The last [18F] report urged the courts to 'start small.'"
Chaser: "In mid-2022, the administrative office awarded a five-year, $298 million contract"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/us/politics/federal-courts-computer-hacks.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kE8.ZGlz.SutO5_9a_G80&smid=url-share
Federal Courts Slow to Fix Vulnerable System After Repeated Hacking

After a 2020 breach thought to be Russia’s work, the courts told Congress that they would harden a system storing sealed documents. Five years later, the system was hacked again.

The New York Times
Show threadAaronFeb 25, 2025

And it should go without saying that building core government services without that expertise usually goes very badly, resulting in project failures and cost overruns to fix problems that design and product expertise would have helped you sidestep to begin with.

Successful public-facing service businesses don't outsource their design and product work. They're core competencies. /end

Show threadAaronFeb 25, 2025
Having design and product expertise in-house is far more cost efficient than outsourcing it. They're almost always less expensive than contract rates, and, in healthy orgs, they stay on team longer. Especially in government environments where leadership turns over every year or two, having stability in design and product is how you maintain continuity and, even if you want to reboot, institutional knowledge. 2/
AaronFeb 25, 2025

Our government is on a tear of terminating service and UX designers and researchers, accessibility specialists, and other customer experience expertise, while retaining (some) software engineers.

It's penny wise and pound foolish. 1/

AaronDec 10, 2024

Want to learn more about our new "50 Digital Public Goods in Government Use" scan and dataset? There's a webinar for that.

Dec 16, 1pm ET, join me and the Beeck Center #GovTech team as we talk about why we did this, what we learned, and what's in the data for you.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/digital-public-goods-landscape-scan-launch-webinar-tickets-1096314860259?aff=oddtdtcreator

Digital Public Goods Landscape Scan Launch Webinar

Join the Beeck Center virtually to explore the possibilities of leveraging Digital Public Goods for transformative public service delivery.

Eventbrite
AaronSep 26, 2024
Dan GillmorSep 26, 2024

Talk about a grotesque invasion of privacy:

"Smart TVs from Samsung and LG take screenshots of what you are watching even when you are using them to display images from a connected laptop or video game console"

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2449198-smart-tvs-take-snapshots-of-what-you-watch-multiple-times-per-second/

How can this possibly be legal?

Here's why: Congress isn't just indifferent to your privacy. It is actively complicit with big corporations -- and law enforcement -- in embedding surveillance into everything we do.

Smart TVs take snapshots of what you watch multiple times per second

Smart TVs from Samsung and LG monitor what you are watching even when you are using the screens to display a feed from a connected laptop or video game console

New Scientist
AaronSep 25, 2024

Callisto is a worthy, proven (and, for the moment, nonprofit) tech product for reducing campus sexual assault by repeat offenders — which is to say, the vast majority of campus offenders. They're looking for either a funder (short or long term) or a new home for the product and its decade's worth of secure data.

The fact that Callisto might have to shut down (and delete all that data) is both crazy and tragic. If you have thoughts on how to help, please reply or message. https://www.projectcallisto.org/blog/heartbroken

We’re heartbroken. — Callisto

These words are painful to type. And it’s hard to know where to start. How do you extinguish the fire that has fueled your small-but-mighty team and has also served as a beacon of hope for so many survivors, nationwide? Callisto, while revolutionary, has been historically difficult to describe a

Callisto
AaronAug 18, 2024
This is how I know there's hope for humanity https://build-your-own.org/blog/20240813_css_vertical_center/
CSS finally adds vertical centering in 2024 | Blog | build-your-own.org

CSS finally adds vertical centering in 2024

build-your-own.org
AaronMar 7, 2024
Leonardo BrogioniMar 7, 2024

“Visitors to the BBC News website will now see a new button saying ‘how we verified this’ underneath images and videos on BBC Verify content.
The new button leads to a ‘content credentials’ feature, which confirms where an image or video has come from and how its authenticity has been verified.”
[Will Carleton/Photo Archive News]

https://photoarchivenews.com/news/bbc-news-releases-new-image-and-video-authenticity-verification-technology/

#journalism #photography #photojournalism #ai #images #video #bbc

BBC News releases new image and video authenticity verification technology - Photoarchivenews

Visitors to the BBC News website will now see a new button saying ‘how we verified this’ underneath images and videos on BBC Verify content. The new button leads to a ‘content credentials’ feature, which confirms where an image or video has come from and how its authenticity has been verified. It also uses new […]

Photoarchivenews
AaronMar 1, 2024
Ryan AndrosoffMar 1, 2024

In our latest episode of Let's Think Digital I'm joined by @aaronsnow to talk about the power of open source software to create a better government.

Check out the episode (and past ones) on our website at: https://thinkdigital.ca/podcast/open-source-government or via your favourite podcast app or on our YouTube channel at: https://youtu.be/2ZJEuTgFK6M?si=V7_y_rGC1Tlkbved

Open Source Government (with Aaron Snow) - Think Digital

It’s fair to say that most governments don’t choose to use open source by default. Despite efforts over the past two decades to make open source solutions a viable, or even default solution in government, there's still a lot of skepticism. Those in decision making positions often raise concerns around security and reliability compared to

Think Digital -