[liberationtech] investing in liberation tech

[Maxim Kammerer]

On 10 November 2014 17:49, J.M. Porup <jm at porup.com> wrote:
> Is it possible to make money investing in privacy- or security-focused
> startups?

There is certainly an interest in the related technologies, but the
obstacles are the ones you would probably expect:

1. Commercial companies don't want to be associated with regular users
of the technologies (dissidents, etc.). So you better be able to
supply your own anonymity network if you need one, etc.
2. Commercial investors have issues with open-source code — something
that can be alleviated with education on necessity of open source in
cybersecurity, and on various licensing approaches (community /
enterprise, etc.).
3. Military / security organizations have issues with the development
not being under their control, and strive to develop in-house
solutions (which might be more primitive / buggy, but that's what they
prefer organizationally).

Overall, privacy / security is a very difficult investment field,
since the end-users don't know the difference between good and
only-so-good technologies, they only see the difference in marketing.