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Comment by secfirstmd | Hacker News Reader

Total plug on similar topic

In a similar vein, we recently built Umbrella App - which has has tons of simple, easily accessible lessons on digital and physical security issues (from sending a secure email to dealing with a kidnap). It's designed to help make security easier for travellers, journalists, activists on the move. It's open source and available here:

-https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...

-https://www.amazon.com/Security-First-Umbrella-made-easy/dp/...

-https://secfirst.org/fdroid/repo

The raw content is CC and available here for reuse: https://github.com/securityfirst

More info: https://www.secfirst.org

Ends total plug on similar topic :)

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I loved your app when I last checked it on FDroid. What is the angle of the Security First group? Is this a startup? I think the idea is interesting and deal tangetially with digital literacy and thought apps like yours are great for such things, but I fail to see how you can convert this into a business beyond funnelling people into your training and consulting stuff, like your website suggests.

Thanks for your nice comment! :)

There's lots of elements at work here but essentially the business model is:

a) Always be ethical, open source and build using grants etc to expand Umbrella's feature set, languages, content etc etc.

b) Diversify by building customisations and white-label versions of the app for large NGO's, various international organisations and commercial businesses. We've already had a lot of interest in this. In that context we are a bit less about the app as a learning tool and more about the security management features which don't exist anywhere else (commercially or open source).

c) Expand on the training and consulting stuff, which at present is going quite well but is pretty hard to scale extensively as it's very person intensive.

Your model is interesting and I find your idea inspiring. I am sure it is a tough market.

Would love to read more as an amateur coder and budding infosec guy.

Thanks, always happy to answer questions!

Note to self, really need to update our documentation and FAQ stuff

Perhaps people like me ought to help you with that. Will check you on GH this weekend.

Cool, if you need any more info please drop me a mail to the address in my profile! :)

I read through some of the content on the github and it seems like good content. I think I'll brush off a dead android that I have at home to take full advantage of the app.

Thanks, we made kept it backwards compatible to Android 2.3.6 until about two weeks ago - due to wanting to ensure people in the developing world on cheaper phones could keep using it.

We've since depreciated that to 3.0 but if your looking for an older version, feel free to drop a mail and we can make it available again. Note to self, make all older versions available on Github

Will there be an iOS version?

Yep, planning for it to be launched in second quarter of next year!

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