Four years ago today, StopBadware.org was announced as a Berkman Center project, with the ambitious goal of fighting badware by building and sharing knowledge through the collective efforts of the community. As the project has evolved, our activities have changed, but the goal has remained the same. So, too, have the tremendous spirit and support of the dedicated individuals and organizations that make our work possible.

Over the past year, our small team has worked with the Berkman Center leadership, our corporate partners, our advisory board and working group, and other key volunteers to figure out how we could make StopBadware even better and how we could lay a strong foundation to carry the organization forward as we enter our fifth year. During this process, we made the difficult decision to leave the Berkman nest and spread our wings as an independent organization.

After months of planning, fundraising, paperwork, and more planning, the time has come. This morning, we announced that the work of StopBadware.org has migrated to StopBadware, Inc., a new non-profit organization based here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While we have dropped the .org for vanity’s sake—it becomes cumbersome to say “StopBadware dot org” all the time—the spirit (and finances) of a .org still apply. In fact, even with the generous backing of our corporate partners, Google, PayPal, and Mozilla, it will be more important than ever for individuals to contribute to our success. Some of our most important work is done by people who contribute their time, whether assisting website owners at BadwareBusters.org, coding for LittleVoice, or getting involved in some other way.

In celebration of this new stage of our existence, we’ve updated our logo and colors, as well as some of the content on our website. Over the next few months, watch for more changes, both aesthetic and substantive, as we embark on this new adventure. As always, we welcome your feedback and guidance.

Finally, we want to express our gratitude to our founders and principal investigators at the Berkman Center, Professor Jonathan Zittrain and Professor John Palfrey, to Berkman’s executive director, Urs Gasser, and to the Berkman Center staff for making the past four years—and the future—of StopBadware possible.

The press release can be found here.

A couple years ago, we started building a new web platform to serve as the basis for our BadwareBusters.org online community site. One goal of the platform was to be easy to use for computer novices, while incorporating more advanced features for power users. Equally important was a goal of making it easy for someone to ask a question and for everyone else to easily see the most valuable responses and the most helpful users. Finally, we wanted the design of the site to facilitate the organic growth of a community organized around a particular interest.

The platform, which we named LittleVoice, is now in use by both BadwareBusters.org and by our sister project here at Berkman, Herdict, for their discussion board. While we're not sure we've fully realized the goals described above just yet, we think the platform is off to a good start. That's why we've decided to release the code as open source and post it on github, where anyone can take advantage of the initial release and/or contribute to making the product better. StopBadware's lead developer, Brandon Palmen, will be coordinating releases. Here are a few ways you can help:

• Contribute bug reports or feature suggestions via our issue tracker
• Tackle one of the existing bugs or feature requests (preferably one targeted for version 1.0.0)
• Review the existing code for opportunities to improve the code's security or efficiency

If you decide to use LittleVoice for your own online community, please let us know (feel free to add it directly to the wiki).

StopBadware.org’s parent organization, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, is turning 10 years old this year and is celebrating by giving away $50,000 at its fund raising gala following the Future of the Internet conference:

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is accepting nominations for the first Berkman Awards. The awards will be presented to people or institutions that have made a significant contribution to the Internet and its impact on society over the past decade.

The primary awardee will receive $50,000, and five smaller awards will be given in specific categories such as: human rights/global advocacy; academic and intellectual leadership; pro bono work; infrastructure/communications tools; arts/culture/media; and news/information/journalism.

There are no conditions placed on how the award money must be spent. Nominations for the award will be accepted from the public until April 11, 2008.

April 11 is this Friday, so if you have an idea for a person or organization to nominate, you’d better do so now.

Where is our fearless leader?
Where is our partner wrangler?
Where is our badware fighter?
Where have all the cowboys gone?

We love badware cowfolk with their badass swaggers and ability to thrive under pressure. A rugged individual, ready to battle badware who is brave and loyal is enough to make any badware researcher weak in the knees. But where have all the cowboys and gals gone?

I suppose the reality of the cowhand’s work is gritty, dusty, and difficult. Wrestling badware is commonly depicted as a hard and lonely existence.

Are you our hero? Can you ride, rope, brand, as well as cook and entertain? Our white knight will oversee communications and community integration efforts and work closely with our working group and an advisory board regarding the direction of our project. She or he will conduct strategic outreach and communications with civil society, private sector, technologists, academia and policymakers.

StopBadware is the “neighborhood watch” for the internet oriented toward finding collaborative, community-minded solutions to combat destructive applications and programs. Our goal is to focus on organizing technical expertise and the public’s user-knowledge to identify and research ‘badware’ and to raise public awareness.

What does all that really mean? Can you wrangle a bunch of partner relationships from driftin’ like tumbleweed in a twister? Will you enjoy wrestlin’ badware in a non-profit, academic, mission-driven setting?

Will you accept our challenge or ride off into the sunset alone? No need to interview with a white hat and tight jeans. We just need a leader with true grit, heroic tendencies and a sense of humor.

For more information and to apply, check out the job posting on the Harvard University Job Site.