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rdl
39,335karma·10,537submissions·July 8, 2008
about
Working on stuff at the intersection of cryptocurrency and computer security. Also a Puerto Rico resident (Act 20/22); happy to help people move to Puerto Rico to take advantage of the federal tax exemption, 0% capital gains rate, and 4% business income tax rate. Also FFL07/SOT02.
Chief Security Officer for Evertas Insurance -- the world's first cryptoasset insurance carrier. https://evertas.com/
Previously, CEO and Co-Founder of CryptoSeal (YC S11), which was sold to CloudFlare on 2 June 2014. CISO/Board Member of Tezos Foundation 2018-2020.
Previous startup founder (HavenCo, a couple ecash projects, distributed colo, and DoD/Iraq contracting, new thing), too. Deeply interested in computer security, infrastructure, security, conflict zones, and making the world a better place.
Aside from living on a Caribbean island during crypto export controlled 1990s, I've lived on a tiny artificial platform in the North Sea, plus more reasonable places like London, Amsterdam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and spent 6 months diving in Thailand.
"I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace."
Email: ryan@venona.com (etc) Twitter: @octal https://twitter.com/octal LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlackey
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recent activity (10,537 total)
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I am a defense contractor; I've worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, etc. since about 2004. 1) $200k is pretty weak, even for today (it's gone downhill overall). If you can get a secret (basically, u…
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Ronald Coase (one of the top 10 economists ever) has a paper about this: firm size is related to factors including communication complexity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm
http…
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I guess I'm alone in hoping for a Nehalem-based Macbook Pro revision (I really want a 17" WUXGA MBP with an i7 CPU to replace a MBP 3,1 15")
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Being a low cost producer is a great survival strategy, even for a new entrant. Walmart, Amazon, and PC vs. Minicomputer are good examples. You can either use your cost advantage to undercut price…
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I would really like it, especially if it defaulted to "off", and you could set certain account age, karma, or karma-per-last-timeperiod thresholds for people to contact you. Even if messages just got…
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Launch one of 3 projects as an actual startup, quit dayjob. 1) infrastructure/platform related to security
2) hardware device with social network features
3) consumer-focused webapp in data aggregatio…
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I'd rather see more efforts to bring women into the top of the startup funnel, vs. singling them out later on if they become successful. There is some value in having good examples of successful women…
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I'd join the military, as long as you have non-financial reasons to do so. Then, you have a bunch of options -- get out after your contract, go reserves/ng, or retire after 20 and have a second caree…
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The normal way to solve this in government and big dumb companies (which issue RFPs) is to have one domain-specific expert firm awarded an RFP management contract, recusing itself from the actual impl…
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Find someone in SF looking for a roommate? (I just moved back to SOMA from Afghanistan and am moving into a huge commercial space live/work with someone and one empty spot, starting in January)
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Chile seems like a great place to live while working on a foreign startup (located in another, zero-tax jurisdiction). As a non-citizen tourist in the country, you'd pay no income tax locally. I'd f…
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I hate dial-in meetings (even a single dial-in can ruin a meeting, unless he is totally ignored). I hate almost all video conferences. I also hate unnecessary travel. (I've been stuck doing 4 voice …
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I use an Aeron; I actually found this one for free, but in the past I've bought used for $250-350. I did actually buy a new aeron once, and then had it air-freighted for $300...and it was entirely wo…
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Actually, there are LOTS of classes and tests on what constitutes the law of land warfare, competent authority, etc. in the military -- way better than anything at MIT or Harvard that I encountered. …
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I dropped out of MIT due to money -- I'd received no financial aid and no other assistance, and couldn't get loans (since I was under 18); I tried working and consulting to pay, but ended up about $50…
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Just auctioning off green cards to people who meet basic requirements (background checks, English fluency) seems to be the fairest way to allocate a scarce resource. I'm not sure if residency (or even…
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Go, but don't use the wifi, or swim in the pools unless you've had ALL your shots.
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Setting up your own reseller through opensrs.
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I've been a customer of the technology company behind this for a year ("Earth Class Mail"), and love their service -- scanning postal email is the equivalent for me of google voice transcribing voicem…
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It's the "foreign earned income exclusion", and it's only the first $91k exempted from US tax (plus a housing allowance, with some restrictions). To get it, you need a "bona fide foreign residence" o…
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GSM would allow it to be used in markets without EVDO, although Amazon would need to figure out some kind of roaming agreement, flatrate data pricing, etc. I use my Kindles (K1 and DX, I've seen other…
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I think it would be even more fun to get a big farm/orchard/ranch with an old farmhouse, sheds, etc., and then bring in high speed fiber, cheap/sustainable utilities, and then put a bunch of 200-1200 …
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The way I've been doing something similar is to take deployed defense contracts which last 3-9 months at a time (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.), and make enough during that period to live for the rest of th…
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I think an easier way to do this is for a forward-thinking hosting provider, colo, etc. in the bay area to offer discounted or free hosting to YC companies (free during the YC period, maybe not after)…
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The only time Adblock Plus blocked something I wanted to see is when I was working for an advertising company and testing ads -- wondering why I didn't see any of them. Heh.
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I think southern WA (Vancouver WA, etc.) is the best place to do a startup right now. There's a large population of highly qualified tech people in Portland, OR, but nowhere near enough local employm…
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There is a lot government can do to help, mainly by doing less: 1) Reverting bankruptcy laws to pre-2005 2) Health care availability for individuals (if I knew the perfect solution to US health care I…
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I'm much more excited by cheaper rents for residential real estate, or commercial to residential conversion. For an under 20 person startup, a suburban house is actually a pretty ideal office; the onl…
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I've been in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. There are a lot of issues with the way aid is distributed. The most successful parts of both places, the wireless networks and decentralized power system…