Civic hacking
Civic hacking on GovFresh.
Thoughts
Every government needs a web bot policy
Build your bot policy now and work with your digital team or vendor to implement it.
By Luke Fretwell
Fork in the code
Repository bureaucracy and how the general public can help preserve government technology assets.
By Luke Fretwell
Analyzing U.S. federal and state government website metadata
How government-managed domains conform to basic metadata practices.
By Luke Fretwell
Civic hacking
The soul and grassroots foundation of democracy.
By Luke Fretwell
Open civic organizations
How government agencies, academia, nonprofit organizations and public sector vendors can build open, participatory models of operating.
By Luke Fretwell
Podcast
Hack to the Future with Emily Crose
Government's history, relationship and evolution with hackers and hacking.
#13
Civic hacking with Carlos Moreno
A citizen journalist and civic technologist shares his experiences and lessons learned civic hacking.
#10
Civic hacking with Steve Spiker
A pioneering civic technologist retrospects and shares his thoughts on hacking government for good.
#9
How we can code a better government
The Government We Need talks with Code for America founder Jen Pahlka about how technology can be a force for civic change.
#3
Papers
Open civic organizations
A deep dive on open civic organizations.
Briefs
Open data
A brief-ish explainer of open data.
Research
Declaration for the Future of the Internet
GovFresh research notes on the Declaration for the Future of the Internet.
Public AI
GovFresh research notes on public artificial intelligence.
Open source
GovFresh research notes on open source software.
Open innovation
GovFresh research notes on open innovation.
Open government
GovFresh research notes on open government.
Open data
GovFresh research notes on open data.
Signal
Coding a COVID-19 dashboard (with my 13 year-old son)
Adventures in father-son civic hacking.
January 11, 2022
Hacking the chief data officers playbook
Making it more accessible, and suggestions for the CDO Council.
January 14, 2022
Civic hacking for '100% .gov'
Re-imagining the government domain name registry experience.
January 21, 2022
Government open data in 2022
Once thriving, now barely surviving. Ideas on how we can breathe more life into it.
March 4, 2022
Father-son civic hacking: Open Data Day 2022
Kickstarting USA.GovFresh, beginning with Federal Register open data.
March 10, 2022
Civic hacking Congress (part 1)
Building congressional pages with the new Library of Congress Congress.gov API.
October 26, 2022
Civic hacking .gov domains
Building a simple .gov domain search tool with CISA open data.
October 29, 2022
Civic hacking the Federal Register
Building an executive branch agency list using the National Archives' Federal Register API.
October 31, 2022
Civic hacking NASA (astronomy picture of the day)
Building a space photo of the day page using NASA's astronomy picture of the day API.
November 3, 2022
Welcome to GovFresh Signal
Subscribe to the official GovFresh newsletter.
December 7, 2022
Retrospecting 2022
Building community, civic hacking with my son, pedigree and public interest technology.
December 15, 2022
Civic hacking CISA cybersecurity news
Building a cybersecurity news page using the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency RSS feeds.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking FDA's National Drug Code Directory
Building a look-up of Food and Drug Administration approved medicines.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking the National Park Service
Building a national parks directory with the NPS API.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking National Geodetic Survey survey marks
Building a survey mark finder app.
December 30, 2022
Civic hacking USAJOBS
Re-imagining federal government job openings with the USAJOBS API.
December 31, 2022
Civic hacking CDC notifiable diseases
Building a map of weekly notifiable disease cases across the United States.
December 31, 2022
White House wants your input on open source software security
A 'civic opportunity to help shape the government’s thinking about open-source software security.'
August 18, 2023
Signal (2024.08.02)
What's on our radar.
August 2, 2024
Signal 2024.09.03
What's on our radar.
September 3, 2024
DEF CON Franklin to hold inaugural town meeting
Getting first projects launched.
October 1, 2024
Signal 2024.10.02
What's on our radar.
October 2, 2024
Government websites fail basic cybersecurity practices
ScanGov adds security grades, scorecards.
October 22, 2024
DEF CON Franklin to host inaugural release of 'The Hackers' Almanack'
Analysis of policy implications from DEF CON 32 findings.
February 4, 2025
Signal 2025.03.14
What's on our radar.
March 14, 2025
World CityCamp Day 2025
A global movement of community-focused events that foster civic collaboration and innovation
July 21, 2025
Books
The Cuckoo's Egg
Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
By Cliff Stoll
A Hacker's Mind
How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back
By Bruce Schneier
Hack to the Future
How World Governments Relentlessly Pursue and Domesticate Hackers
By Emily Crose
Cult of the Dead Cow
How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World
By Joseph Menn
Labs
USA.GovFresh
Re-imagining USA.gov.
ScanGov
Government digital experience monitor
GovPress
A WordPress theme for government.