SYFER: Hello World!
It all began on a typical Thursday morning in March of 2017. Araz (now CEO and Co-Founder of Syfer) came across an interesting article on Forbes.com explaining a recent Act of Congress providing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) permission to sell private customer data, without requiring the knowledge or consent of the customer. Basically, anything connected to your personal WiFi is no longer “personal.” Not that Araz had anything to hide, but he was still feeling very uneasy about third parties having access to his family’s personal information — the mentality that “big brother is always watching.” With this concern, Araz started looking into purchasing a system or device that could adequately protect his family’s privacy. After extensive research, it became clear there was no product on the market that could make him feel completely protected. Disappointed in his pursuit of a simple and effective solution he started prototyping a VPN solution on a raspberry pi board, which provided encryption for his home network’s internet traffic.
This was a brilliant beginning. During our ski trip a few weeks later, Araz began discussing his prototype with me. I am a devout cyber security practitioner by nature and have a passion for this field. In a fortuitous twist of fate, during this same time period, I had been tinkering with the idea of building an accessible security solution. The time was right. I told Araz that we should build a platform where we can incorporate advanced privacy and security measures in a user-friendly way — something our parents could use without difficulty. After several more discussions during the trip and a round of beers upon returning to Atlanta, the idea for SYFER was born. We continued to brainstorm, architect, and implement a robust security backbone. Next, we created an intelligent tunneling engine with a touch of parental control capabilities into the Syfer ecosystem. We were off to a great start.
As a guiding principle, Syfer aims to provide every home with an intuitive solution to protect its privacy, security, and everything in between. We realized the market is full of costly, complicated, and intimidating products — we designed Syfer approachable, affordable, and comprehensive. After all, you shouldn’t need a Ph.D. in Computer Science to properly protect yourself!
