The VP of Secure Swiss Data, David Bruno, for the Great American Business Guru Radio Show

The absolutely phenomenal grounds that Secure Swiss data has been making

David Bruno: The company started back in 2015 and it really came out of an idea, then mainly from our current partner Silent Circle. Back a few years ago Silent Circle had produced a rather robust secure communications platform including secure email. They also had of course everything that we know about and today with the secure telecommunications products whether it be by phone and by text, their email platform and their system was set up in Silicon Valley and naturally that’s where the foremost talent in North America is right now.

So they had quite a few members and low and behold two years later in about 2013, the American government, came in and said: “it’s a great system that you’ve got lying there. But you know we have a bit of a problem with it because you know it could be hiding nefarious information and well you’re just going to have to give us a backdoor.” So, Silent Circle said: ” We don’t think so, it’s a breach of contract to our partners or to our members”, and they just said “No”. So, the government said “well if you don’t give us access we’re just going to have to shut you down.”

So, from there Silent Circle had to make a very tough decision and they said well you know we’re just going to tell our members the truth. So they went back to their e-mail and president said look this is what’s happening and we’re just going to have to close it down.

And in response to that, as well, they moved their core business which is the telecommunications part of it over to Switzerland. And from there that sort of gave us the idea that they’ve really got something that we can pick up here. That’s the idea of how we started in a nutshell.

Where do you store the customer data?

David Bruno: Well you know if you look at it on face value the answer is Switzerland. But you know you have to make a choice and there are choices in the world. There are three distinct jurisdictions that are actually vying for people’s data. I mean the jurisdictions that I’m talking about are Dubai, Iceland and Switzerland.

Now having said that you know you can break that apart and you can examine it, sometimes I even get a chuckle out of myself when you say well would I trust my information to Dubai? Well I’ll let you decide on that one.

The second one is Iceland, but Iceland, I mean they are doing a good job I must admit, but they don’t really have a longstanding culture about it. The reason why I’m bringing this up is because when the famous Panama papers came out there were a lot of prominent politicians that came out in the lot of them were Swiss and from other countries. And this was on the other hand that just sort of brushed it off their shoulders and they moved on with their daily lives. A lot of the politicians that came out in Iceland, well it became a national scandal. So you have to ask yourself, I mean, are they are they capable of handling your data as well. I mean do they know what they’re doing. Maybe. Possibly.

The third jurisdiction, you know you have to keep in mind that the background behind this, which is that they were really truly burnt, when it came to their banking system, where they spread their wings and the governments around the world said give us access to our own nationals and if you don’t get the heck out of our countries. So, the Swiss model kind of lost their shirts in their ordeal. So, when they look back in their history, they say never again.

So, the one thing that they started to really promote was the protection of personal data. And in that instance you know when you sat up in Switzerland you can rest assured that whatever you set up in those confines will be protected. And that is the main reason why we’re there.

So, we chose that jurisdiction and what the Swiss did was actually quite brilliant. They turned a lot of the Cold War military bunkers and converted them into data centers and that’s where we have our information and that’s where our members’ information is kept also.

Enjoy the talk and listen to the answers our VP has on:

• What are some of the consequences that we’re experiencing today as a result of free e-mail?
• How the integration of smart phones and free apps influence our lives?
• We’re actually going through a paradigm shift. We’re currently still completely unaware.
• what encryption means? What kind of security does that offer?
• How has the NSA leaks created an awareness of the impact of security breaches?
• Who’s surveying our e-mails?
• What would somebody do with information they gather and who they sell it to, like marketing companies?

And, there is more where that came from, so you can enjoy the next talk here: