h+h lab principles
For every project, we need to create a document with all security risks and how we reduce these risks. This document should cover attacks from:
- Ourselves. What if we start to be an evil company? The document should especially cover preventing ourselves from being an uncontrollable monopoly.
- Government and big companies. Who has access to user data? How we can prevent data leaks.
- Trolls. How can people use community rules in a destructive form?
- Users own their data. They should understand if we use their data for anything. Our architecture should allow them to remove their data or download it.
- We should prefer local-first architecture.
- User should be able to change client or move to another vendor.
- UI should explain to users how everything works. No magic or black boxes.
- We do not make decisions for users. We should explain the consequences to them and help them decide. Users should feel that they control the system.
- We should focus on specific cases instead of creating a universal system for everything.
- In every app we should care about i18n, cross-platform support, and a11y.
- There is no single truth. Freedom is right to be wrong.
- Monetization model or plans for it in early stages should be open and documented. The security risks document from “Protect users from ourselves” is a good place for it.
- We should keep discussions about the project open. If it is impossible, we should explain the reasons behind our discussions.
- All code should be open-source by default. We should have good reasons if we need to close any component.
- We should document all protocols used in an application.
- We are making mistakes. We should not fear uncomfortable questions and even promote discussions about our problems. On the other hand, we should not blame anyone from the team for mistakes.