JackPair is inspired in large part by Edward Snowden. The first Snowden leak led to the revelation that the NSA collects records of every U.S. phone call under a call log metadata program. It shows that the data collection is no longer about targeted acquisition of information to avert threats. Such a massive scale of surveillance programs has undermined the fundamental American values of freedom and privacy. America is sliding into a state of universal surveillance. This also reminds me of the police state where I grew up, Taiwan. Before the democratic reform, the government could spy on you without reasons and arrest you based on words you have said. Even today, there are still WaterGate-like scandals happening and the politicians get away without any accountability.
With all these breaking news unrolled in front of us, I started to ask myself, what can we do to stop the abusive wiretapping and protect the democracy & freedom we all believe in as Americans? If we can’t stop the abuse of power from its root, then what’s the next best thing we can do to protect ordinary citizens from being harassed by the abusive power?
As a network security engineer, I've been involved in both sides of the security arm races; on the defense side, I've built computer firewalls and virtual private networks for millions of uses, and on the offensive side, I’ve designed peer-to-peer protocols and network traversal programs that penetrate those firewalls and VPNs. I know how complex the security technologies can be, and how hard it is for average citizens to make use of the security technologies to defend themselves. Existing solutions available on the market are either too difficult to use, way too expensive, or just not secure at all. So we rolled up our sleeves and built one that’s simple, affordable, and compatible with any phone you already have.
This is how JackPair was born.
AWIT Systems, Inc. is a Silicon Valley based startup with strong backgrounds in distributed networking, embedded systems, peer-to-peer, mobile gaming, and online/web technologies. We think everyone should be able to communicate freely and securely, from everywhere at anytime, without the limitations imposed by any 3rd party service providers, including us. And JackPair is one of the products we build at AWIT to walk the talk. We hope you enjoy using JackPair as much as we have enjoyed creating it!
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