SecuriTreat

I'm playing the long game: gathering industry and academic contacts to form a nonprofit that, among other things, will enable more people to do what I do.

If you're not quite sure what it is that I do, my home page is a mini-FAQ, and you can find more info in the about me tab.

I wanna call this nonprofit "SecuriTreat."

Great name, right?! If not, please tell me, and I'll only cry a little.

I worked really hard on the logo though, so please don't tell me if you don't like that.

Just kidding! Please do tell me, and I'll only cry a lot.

What's it gonna do?

School Outreach

We'll make a point to include low-income schools and employ strategies that prevent gender-bias in education, so we get ALL the kids excited about cybersecurity!

Since I can only be in one place at a time (unless maybe science?), we'll hire more enthusiastic new college grads.

I'm already planning simple games and exercises, and once the new grads get comfortable, they can start adding their own!

Establish Technology Hubs

Can we call these "SecuriTreatment Facilities" pleeeaaase?

A large number of attacks would be prevented if more people understood their tech, so these will be places to learn.

We'll offer tech support that actually teaches people how to fix problems rather than just…

1. Take machine
2. Do black magic
3. Give fixed machine back

Extreme Makeover: Computer Edition

There are still too many people without basic computer access, but there's a lot of old hardware out there that just needs a little sprucing up.

Buying an old computer directly can be dangerous, because you have no idea what's been installed or what the previous owner left on disk.

We'll fix these lonely old machines by wiping them and setting up basic protection.

Major companies can donate outdated hardware to nonprofits for tax writeoff, and there's a ton of cheap stuff on eBay.

This will take people-hours, but that would be minimal if streamlined.

We'll then be able to donate some computers to schools and offer low cost machines to people that might not otherwise be able to afford them.

Promote a Vulnerability Hotline

Too many people are hacked or phished because they don't know what to do when there is a problem.

We need a publicly accepted number like 4-1-1 that everyone knows to call if you might be hacked or phished.

I hope that there's already something like this out there, but I haven't heard of anything sufficient, so we may need to lobby the government or pray to the Lord of Light to make one or something.

The nonprofit would then run a campaign to make the number common knowledge which would prevent attackers from pretending to be hotlines themselves.

Offer Classes

We'll offer basic computer literacy/safety classes.

Depending on demand, different topics could be covered more thoroughly for different age groups as affordable 6-week class packages.

To make sure no kids are getting left out of the fun, we'll also have occasional seminars that teach ways to reduce unconscious bias in education.