Secure Perimeter

Institute

“Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” ~ Ed Snowden, Anno Domini 2015

For several weeks I have been talking about your need to get serious about communications privacy and data security. There are some indications, especially with the significant readership for my essay on “Smart meters and blocking” that you good people are taking these admonitions to heart. Excellent.

Please allow me to introduce you to Secure Perimeter Institute. In my initial essay on this topic from the end of last month I wrote that we were using “Security Learning” as the placeholder name. Now we have brainstormed the name we are going to be using. We went ahead and secured a domain name for the new enterprise which we’ll announce when we have built a web site for it.

What we do

Secure Perimeter Institute provides services to people who need better communications privacy and data security. We offer expertise, education, training, direction toward useful credentials and certification programmes, consulting services, and personal support.

The cybersecurity industry is a mess. For a great many reasons it isn’t likely to get straightened out very soon. There are about 26 major areas or subsectors of this industry each one of which has dozens of vendors supplying various qualities of solution. Some subsectors have hundreds of suppliers. It is an industry that is ripe for what we were taught in business school to call “a roll up strategy.” We are planning how to go about implementing such a strategy of acquiring a set of these companies and building an integrated solution.

Secure Perimeter Institute is pursuing four paths to success. First, we are seeking customers who want to learn about data security and communications privacy. Second, we are seeking investors who want to participate in our pre-seed round. Third, we are seeking contributions from patrons. Fourth, we are seeking sponsorships and cooperative marketing opportunities with strategic partner organisations.

We want a vertically integrated solution that covers every subsector of the cybersecurity industry with a working system. Our solution for individuals needs to be "grandma just do this" compliant, meaning that any teenager can explain to their grandma how to have better data security and more communications privacy. Our solution for individuals will cover things like virtual privacy network solutions, email encryption, public/private keyrings, open source encrypted chat, voice, and video, open source laptop and desktop operating systems and software covering the main application spaces, a secure phone operating system, and other services for individuals. Privacy focused cryptocurrency solutions such as Zcash, Monero, Pirate Chain, and Enshroud should be discussed.

Our solution for businesses and organisations will expand on these offerings to provide firewall, distributed denial of service response, ownership of your company's cloud storage, backup solutions, penetration testing and response, app development security, and other services for businesses. Our goal is not only to have the solution for people but to acquire market share to increase the profitability of our business for our partners.

Who we are

The distinctive competence of Secure Perimeter Institute is the ability to translate complex topics into easy to understand lessons. We provide knowledge about communications privacy and data security as consultants and as teachers to a global clientele.

There are several people involved in the project right now. However, only one of us is out in the open. You may reflect on the conditions in our world that motivate people to keep their involvement confidential. With public figures and random strangers on public transport being murdered in recent days, you can see the dangers for yourself.

Jim Davidson, yours truly, is the managing director. He has been teaching communications skills professionally since 1980. His concentrations at Columbia included economics, history, and astrophysics. He has an MBA from Rice University in marketing and entrepreneurship. He's been a published author since 1977, a software developer, tutorial composer, web developer, cryptocurrency entrepreneur, online anonymity expert, chief technology officer, and advocate for data security and communications privacy. He has travelled extensively in native American and African sovereignties, European communities, the Far East, all fifty states, and on a total of four continents. He has language skills in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Latin.

Jim has met and in many instances worked with a Who's Who of legends in cryptography, cryptocurrencies, penetration testing, communications systems implementation, and anonymity services. He has been an early adopter and frequent user of open source encrypted chat, encrypted voice, encrypted video, and encrypted transaction systems and services going back to Hushmail, Seamail, Protonmail, Jitsi, Signal, Session, and many others. He has worked with tunnel and mixmaster virtual privacy networks, location agnostic servers, anonymous remailers, and many other technologies, so he is especially capable of teaching related skills.

Why it matters

The enemies of freedom are highly motivated and have become wealthy and powerful. Every email, every text, every voice call, every radio transmission, every telegram and telex ever sent, and most of the postal and mainstream courier service deliveries have been monitored since roughly 1916. What became the national security agency (NSA) was the "black chamber" in that earlier year over a century ago. Yet the friends of freedom who have built much of the backbone of the Internet know how to keep communications private and data secure. Why doesn't everyone? Partly because those who have power don't want this knowledge to be widely disseminated. Significantly because culture and propaganda oppose many intellectual pursuits. People ask "should I try to be a straight A student" and are told "if you are then you think too much." So there is an ongoing struggle to keep people ignorant by those in power which we seek to match by offering knowledge, training, and support.

In this era of scrutiny, many people are opting out. Many people are seeking freedom from subjugation. Many people are seeking to remain free, have privacy, and improve their financial autonomy. Secure Perimeter Institute knows how to help. We have consultants and teachers who offer our knowledge at competitive rates.

How you can help

This essay is an appeal for support. We are looking for donors.

We are looking for patrons to support my related project of writing the A to Z manual of cyber security for people who want one book to learn. I’ve gotten a lot of very positive feedback, including from the author of two such books. My friend who wrote the compendium of all the things an electrical contractor needs to know in order to competently install electric service to a new building as it is being built or repair electric service in an existing building also subsequently wrote a very similar book on fibre optic cable install. He thinks my idea for a book is a good one. So I’m raising $8,000 for that particular project from donors and patrons. If you contribute more than $80 you will get a copy of the book signed by me.

We would like to have patrons of the institute named on our web site. Obviously, that is not for the faint of heart. People who are publicly associated with our work may encounter unpleasant responses. The communists who target public speakers with assassination and who want to fill the streets of urban communities with violent criminals are completely against individual liberty, personal privacy, decency, humanity, private property, and free markets out of a comprehensive preference for evil. So you are welcome to make public or anonymous donations as you think best.

Do you know of a company or a person who would like training on communications privacy and data security technologies? We are paying a 20% commission for sales that result in payments from customers. So if you line up such a customer, you will be compensated every time they pay us.

We are looking for strategic partnerships. If you are part of an organisation, enterprise, or institute that is involved in communications privacy, data security, technology development, or would like to be, we are interested in building relationships. There are many ways to work together, such as cooperative marketing, promotions, sharing links, banner advertising, and endorsements.

There are several ways to help us financially. We have CashApp, use various cryptocurrencies, and work with some legacy financial systems. The best way to find out more is to contact me directly. Here in Substack the way to do so is using the Direct Messages system.

If you want a better future, it would be wise to make plans. When you communicate with other people about those plans, you should do so with communications privacy technologies so you are not telling the enemies of freedom all about what you are planning. When you make a written copy of your plans you should save it securely so it will be available to you in the future. Doing a few simple things can help you build an enduring legacy for yourself and your family.

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That’s all I’ve got for today. Come back next time when I have something new. Or old.