Friday 23 March 2012

security privacy freedom

SumRando is a company devoted to cybersecurity. The idea pulsing it to life is that people need to educate themselves about how things have changed since the internet became a part of who we are as a civilization. It was conceived for the people who never took a class on internet safety and social media who still just want their cookies to be chocolate chip. That said, it is also for people who watch Star Trek and can probably code the Enterprise into existence.

I have always been into technology and remember sitting around my family PC when I was eight, reading bulletin board posts on Prodigy for hints on a computer game called Monkey Island. My father presented me with a veritable tome of websites out there that I might ever want to visit--it may very well have been comprehensive. 

I studied computer science briefly but went on to concentrate on psychology and then politics. In US Congress, in addition to helping our systems administrator deal with technical challenges, I managed to sneak cybersecurity into my portfolio. 

Congress, along with governments, private industry and educational institutions around the world are waking up to a pop quiz in cyber terrorism. At a talk in DC after the China Google attacks a very clever Secretary made a compelling argument to take the fate of the internet into our own hands. I didn’t go on to found the Stewards of the Internet Facebook page, but I did commit to finding a way to participate. 

SumRando is not the solution to all of the existing and emerging issues that deal with cybercrime. It is a building block amongst many that people need to collect to build their 21st century identity. It is a jumping off point for people who want a tool to secure what is naturally theirs.