I firmly believe there’s a need for good brute force protection products. The ones currently available simply aren’t good enough for larger corporate needs or Cloud Service Providers really or they’re too expensive and complicated to use..
Some possible improvements are already out there for some of them such as Cyberarms going Open Source. At the time I helped start up Syspeace, I would say that Cyberarms was the main competitor and I was really surprised and sad they eventually decided to end their business.
With that said, there’s a good foundation using their code and improving it and modernizing it because there’s a lot of critical things missing in there in order to actually be useful for enterprises the way I see it. Actually, quite a few and there needs to be new functionality in there too. Not really disclosing my thoughts here about it though.
The ways to go about this, the way I see anyway, is to …
Open Source and brute force prevention
… sit down and have a close look at for instance the Cyberarms code and help out as an Open Source developer and try to get a product that’s free and beneficial for everyone.
The downside to that is, as with most Open Source, that if you’re a system administrator and something doesn’t work, you might want to have access to an actual support, helpdesk and getting help in troubleshooting. You also may want to be assured that development will continue.
You simply don’t have the time to search forums or read through the code to try and figure out what’s wrong or how to improve it and often enough, system administrators aren’t developers. I know I’m not very good at writing code myself anyway.
There’s also the risk of people coding losing the interest of an Open Source project, since they don’t make any money out of it and eventually start feeling they’re just wasting free time, resulting in that the product will eventually just die or stay stagnant and eventually become obsolete.
Creating a new brute force protection platform as a business idea
The second path would be to start up a new project with developers, marketing people and investors to actually build a product that is useful for enterprises and cloud providers and so on. Such a product needs to have quite a lot of functionality added compared to the ones that are already out there but with the right people and effort, it can be done. I’m absolutely sure of it.
These new ideas and functionalities are probably best provided by people who actually deal with these questions on a day to day basis i.e System Administrators, Server Managers and so on…
As you may or may not know I was previously deeply involved in the creation and startup of Syspeace.
I had the original idea for a brute force protection software and was a part of most aspects it but unfortunately we just couldn’t agree on what was reasonable on the business side of it once our initial agreement ended so I decided to go with the “live and let die” policy.
It basically just took too much energy from me to haggle and not getting anywhere really and frankly, the project had become stagnant the way I saw it so consider this plan B.
The future then? Can it be made viable as a business idea?
Basically what I’m driving at is this, are there the right people out there? Anyone up for starting up a new project and try to create an even better brute force protection and security platform with me?
I have already had a few feelers with other companies and there is an interest to be part of such a project. The best scenario would probably be to get in touch with a development company that already has developers and want to broaden their portfolio with a security product but on the other hand, it can be a very small staff of people doing it too.
I’m not opposed to investing myself also and since I know the finances behind such a product and what it can generate I have a reason to believe in it, both technically and businesswise.
Remember, the market is worldwide. It’s not geographically confined and that’s why I’m actually writing this in English, although for me personally, the startup of such a project would be easier if it were in Sweden. I’m. just thinking practically.
I’ve already done it once and I believe it can be done again but even better. I’ve already seen the mistakes so to speak.
Of course, there are other ways too, such as Crowdfunding and FundedByMe and all that but I firmly believe not only do you have to have the finances settled but also be sure to have the right people involved, willing to invest their time and focus.
At the moment it’s just a thought from my side and nothing has really taken any shape (apart from registering a domain for it really) but I would hate to throw away all the ideas, knowledge and experience I have around such a project. I think I have a pretty good inkling of budgets, the business side and of course the technical aspects and functionality of what such a product should be.
So, if you’re up for it, just contact me or give me call and say hi and we’ll take it from there?
I think the time would be more or less now because I’m certain there’s stuff going on in other places too so in order to get a product up and running and get market shares, this would be the time to do it.
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