Signal designs their systems from the ground up to deliver verifiable trust mechanisms (via remote attestation) along with data minimization/zero-access encryption techniques.
> It seems there is no standard proper way to store private keys.
The gold standard for this would be a Hardware Security Module (HSM), which is essentially a device that stores private keys with certain guarantees of physical security (e.g, that private key material cannot be extracted from the device once it has been generated or placed there, and the device performs operations using the key material on behalf of some client).
HSMs in various forms underpin all sorts of cryptosystems that society depends on, because securing private key material at rest is essential. You'll find them everywhere from your debit/credit card, to certificate authorities, financial institutions, defense, and your smartphone.
For your use case, I'd recommend taking a look at Yubikeys. I did a writeup a while back on how to use them to store different types of private keys for various purposes:
Though other use cases for the appliance are given, it seems primarily designed for military applications?
It's designed to military standards and to be as individually transportable as other military communications equipment:
> Department of Defense (DoD) Impact Level 5 (IL5) accreditation
> rugged and portable design that meets stringent accreditation requirements like MIL-STD-810H
> The appliance can be conveniently transported in a rugged case
> Weighing approximately 100lbs, it's human-portable, making it easy to transport and deploy in various locations.
> disaster zones, remote research stations, or long-haul trucking operations
Military operations are all three of these.
Its design enables the offline self-hosting of cloud surveillance tools:
> Google Distributed Cloud air-gapped appliance is designed to operate without any connectivity to Google Cloud or the public internet. The appliance remains fully functional in disconnected environments
> built-in AI solutions from the Google Distributed Cloud air-gapped appliance like translation, speech, and optical character recognition
I run a large Meetup group for software developers in the Tampa Bay Area [0]
We’re multi-platform, and essentially a technology vendor for other Meetup groups in Tampa ([1]). While our overall community spans ~4,000 distinct people, only ~2,300 of those are Meetup members [1],[2]
I’ve built a ton of unique integrations around Meetup, and have built a ton of custom integrations with Meetup’s API (such as [3],[4])
If you’d like to get in touch, please do send an email to the address on our GitHub org [5]. Would love to see more competition in this space!
I had a strikingly similar experience at my own university, and took things into my own hands somewhat by teaching a free, basic Git course each semester.
I've been working on Tampa Devs with the other co-founder since September of 2021, along with a group of really excellent volunteers.
We're a nonprofit that's loosely inspired by nyc's Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/). We host events, a mentorship program, and career development resources. All of which are free or very low cost.
Our community has grown to include thousands of local developers. It feels good to be part of something that drives a widely positive impact, especially on a local level. Anyone can do something similar no matter where they are, and I would highly recommend it.
For a cool technical angle, here's a talk I gave at a local conference on the tools we use to run our community at scale: https://go.tampa.dev/unityops.
Love that you're inspired by RC! I went through an RC in-person mini-batch in 2019, and I'm still part of the alumni community there -- I've attended a few virtual Never Graduate Weeks (NGWs). Glad to share my experience.
(You can find me in TampaDevs Slack. I moved to Tampa from NY in 2021. Keep up the good work!)
Yeah, I'm going through my GitHub followers and posting something from each account that looks cool. Pay it forward, give back the love, etc etc! I realized they be doing cool things and I didn't pay enough attention. Put too much focus on what I was doing, and not enough on what the people who value me (in some form or fashion haha! :), online at least) were doing. Hahah! :)
So now it's time to change that and give back. I think it's a cool idea. I encourage you folks to do the same! :)
What are the industries employing software developers in the Tampa area? I assume there's some work in the insurance industry but not so much software industry work?
There's a wild amount of mechanical, electronic and software work going on in the Tampa Bay area.
Work is a lot more physical here than what I saw during 2+ decades in the SF Bay area (which was mostly software oriented, IME).
There's a ton of defense tech companies, medical tech, finance and (at least) 2 huge PCB assemblers are also here (Kimbal and Jabil).
St Pete and Tampa both have extensive areas filled with small physical production companies that can do machining, lasers, plastics, engineering, etc. The services can be pricey and a bit slow because they're built around defense/medical budgets, but unlike many other geographic areas, they are available domestically and folks tend to be really helpful.
Publix technology is a regular employer of .NET and big data developers, and fairly recession-resistant and remote friendly. Verizon, Geico, Amazon have offices in central Florida. Lots of e-commerce and hospitality companies like Disney, Universal, Etc. Not Tampa per se, but within the Tampa-Orlando megalopolis. No state income taxes (or infrastructure) and the weather is favorable. There are a lot of law firms, and most big 5 tech, consulting, and cyber companies have offices in the area.
Yeah St Pete is highly underrated in FL tech. Lot of interesting tech companies in the downtown core. I use to work for a Shopify-esque e-commerce platform that was built with React and Go in 2014. It was my first professional job after doing various jquery freelance work for a year prior.
I learnt quite a bit there about proper software engineering.
It makes me extremely happy to see the company still kicking around, with mostly the same people still but now in leadership positions.
I was about to comment something to the same effect.
Like the author, as well as many who have commented, I've long been disappointed in the gap between macOS' support for advanced use cases (which I need), and the iPad's portability (which I like).
I picked up a Surface Go 3. Having an actual desktop OS on a well-built, decently powerful (albeit hot at times) tablet struck the perfect balance for me. Wish I had done it years ago.
Here’s one such example, which is also an interesting technical deep dive: https://signal.org/blog/building-faster-oram/