This is your guide to CDR Link-- What it is, the team behind it, how to set it up, and how to use it.

Make sure you check out our Gitlab project page to contribute code, create a ticket, or learn more!

CDR Link is a privacy- and security-focused helpdesk that makes asking for help easy. Built on the Zammad ticketing platform, CDR Link is a secure human rights helpdesk featuring custom messaging plugins for Signal and WhatsApp, enabling responders to safely and efficiently help communities seeking assistance.

Visit the CDR Link website at https://digiresilience.org/tech/link.html

• Zammad helpdesk: A customized and secure version of Zammad, an open source, flexible, multi-channel ticketing platform that enables those in need to ask for help, and providers to respond.
• Custom settings: CDR Link adjusts Zammad’s defaults to ensure a secure hosting setup.
• Multi-channel integrations: Integrations with popular messaging apps, including Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Twitter, making it easy to securely reach responders to request assistance.
• Security: Secure methods of ticket creation and communication that don’t require users to install complex and difficult software like PGP.
• Documentation: Detailed, plain-text documentation of every inch of the software stack, including support for self hosting, resources for digital security trainers, and resources from the wider community.

CDR Link is guided by the community-minded, open source, sustainability-focused ethic of CDR's programmatic work. These principles include:

• Security: Security and privacy are our first priority, and must be included from the start, never an afterthought or add-on.
• Interoperability: Link’s technology, taxonomy, processes, and frameworks must interoperate with other platforms in our space.
• Open source: All technology that we create or adapt must be open source, ideally licensed under the GPL, and we build on the shoulders of giants by incorporating trusted, open-source platforms and technologies.
• Unix philosophy: Many small parts doing single things well, rather than one big thing that does many things badly.
• Part of the ecosystem: All work must be done to contribute to and support the existing ecosystem of technology-supported efforts to defend human rights and protect civic engagement.
• Documentation: Every technology and process must be documented in a way that makes third-party use as easy as possible.
• Packaging: All component parts of the CDR Link stack will be packaged in a way that makes third-party deployment as easy as possible.

Center for Digital Resilience is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that partners with communities around the world to provide sustainable, strategic approaches to long-term digital wellness. We see security as a collective community endeavour rather than solely an individual or organisational one. We work with regional and thematic communities of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) around the world to improve their collective understanding of the threats they face and how to mitigate them. We aim to not only ensure timely and effective responses for our communities, but to reduce their need for emergency response in the first place. The impact of our work is to protect civil society and empower activists to regain civic space.

We work alongside partners and a network of trusted digital security responders to provide security assessments, preventative wellness plans, trainings, incident response, alerts about crucial threats, and ongoing support. We currently partner with communities in the Middle East, North America, Southeast Asia, and East Africa.

Guardian Project (guardianproject.info) creates easy to use secure apps, open-source software libraries, and customized solutions that can be used around the world by any person looking to protect their communications and personal data from unjust intrusion, interception and monitoring.

To learn more about CDR, or to request a demo of CDR Link, visit our website or email [email protected].