New Hampshire Startup Aims To Block Snoops, But Can’t Block NSA

Ever since former Edward Snowden blew the whistle on Prism, anyone and everyone has been thinking about their privacy and snooping. A Nashua startup called SnoopWall aims to protect people from snooping on their smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately cyber-security expert and founder of SnoopWall, Gary Miliefsky, says it can’t protect you from the NSA.

But say you have a jealous lover, or ex-lover, or maybe your company or coworkers are spying on your phone and tablet. Then you’re in luck. SnoopWall protects phones and tablets by blocking prying eyes from different hardware ports.

Miliefsky explains “They [NSA] own access to the towers, the routers, to backdoors. We’re not going to stop the good guys; we’re going to stop the bad guys.”

Normal snoopers, without the backing and technology of the NSA, often use a tactic called “port scanning”. This digital eavesdropping tactic scans open ports for things like webcams, microphones, and GPS systems. When these ports are left open, potential snoops can get in and do a variety of things like watch what your camera sees, or listen to your conversations through the phone or tablet’s microphone. They can also keep track of your whereabouts by tapping into your GPS.

SnoopWall has three levels of security to protect users from would-be eavesdroppers. At one level all ports are blocked or shut down. The second mode is a phone-only mode, and the third is a kid mode which allows kids to play local games and use local apps but shuts down data.

The Nashua Telegraph reports that SnoopWall is bootstrapping and working to raise a very small seed round of $10,000 via Kickstarter. Miliefsky is looking to use the Kickstarter network to drive interest and get people talking about it, which is far more valuable then the $10,000.

“Kickstarter, with six million viewers a day, could not only fund the continuation of the development to a finished release, but create a viral community of friends,” Miliefsky told the Nashua Telegraph. “These people, when they give 5 dollars, they’re not going to give up on you – they tweet and blog to their friends about it.”

Miliefsky is no stranger to startups. He is part of the “Angel Breakfast Club,” a group of angel investors that get together for breakfast in the New Hampshire town. It was there that he got involved with a startup called Pony Express and realized that there was a hole in port security. Milefsky’s background is in cyber security.

Check out SnoopWall on Kickstarter here.

New Hampshire Startup: Rock Lobby Shows Off At SXSW 2013 [sxsw]

New Hampshire startup RockLobby is like Yelp for live shows, which is a great reason for demoing at the SXSW trade show which bridges the interactive with the music festival.

RockLobby allows the user to find live shows and venues and write reviews on the shows themselves. If the live show isn’t already there, the user can create it. From there other users can read the feedback and the sliding rating scale to make informed decisions on which shows to attend.

We got a chance to interview Peter Kruger, founder and CEO of RockLobby who also took us on a tour of the app.

The mobile app has a global review feed that allows users to see a list of current live show reviews. The user can then click on the reviews they want to see more in depth. They’ll be able to see the live show’s star rating, comments, photos and even share it on their own RockLobby feed.

When a user wants to review a liveshow the realtime app allows them to click “I’m at a show”, “I saw a show”, or “I’m going to a show” where they can then add their narrative review photos and a star based review. The review is then published to the global review feed where others can read it, share it and comment on it.

Check out our video interview below. For more info visit RockLobby.com

See even more startup coverage from SXSW 2013 here!

New Hampshire Social Entrepreneurs Launch LocalCoaster

We’ve seen an explosion of social entrepreneurship represented by some great out of the box startup ideas. Back in November we brought you an interview with Utah Startup HeadCase, which is attacking poverty with headphones. We also recently wrote about Los Angeles startup Upperatus, using unique monthly designed t-shirts and donating $11 per shirt to a monthly charity.

Now, New Hampshire startup LocalCoaster is using coasters in bars and restaurants as a socially driven advertising vehicle. The startup, founded by Whit Whitman, Jim Thompson, Susan Wiley and Matt Burke are using both sides of a coaster to engage customers, get them local deals and give to charity.

The company is attracting local businesses and corporate sponsors to advertise on the coasters.

NPR describes the process like this:

One side of the coaster is sold to a local advertiser, for example RiverRun Bookstore. On the other side the advertising will be sold to larger corporations like Holloway Automotive .

The coasters will be distributed free to local restaurants and bars. The advertisers and partnered restaurants will get to vote for their favorite charities. The charity selected will receive the first $5000 of the as revenue.

The startup received there first shipment of 110,000 coasters at the beginning of the month. They’ve signed up 11 local businesses and 1 corporate advertiser to date. They are optimistic about LocalCoaster. They also have 16 local and regional charities on board.

They plan on expanding outside of Portsmouth shortly. In February they will open up shop in Portland Maine. Burlington Vermont and Conway New Hampshire are already listed on the companies website.

Linkage:

Check out LocalCoaster here

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New Hampshire Startup: Regaalo Takes To Indiegogo For Expansion

The student founders of Regaalo (photo regaalo.com)

Stories like this one are a strong indicator that as soon as the SEC figures out the regulations for crowdfunding for startups, it’s going to take off.

Regaalo, a social gifting startup founded by University of New Hampshire (UNH) graduates has taken to crowdfunding site, Indiegogo, to expand their gifting startup to Boston.

Regaalo allows parents and loved ones of college students to send them real gifts using an app on their mobile phones. The service is currently available for UNH students from surrounding merchants. Basically a parent or loved one back home can pay for and send their college student a real gift that will show up on the students mobile phone.

For example parents can order their student a pizza from a local pizza merchant. All the student has to do is pick the pizza up and show them the app on the phone to verify payment.

“The text-messaging gift gives us our edge, it’s what makes us unique,” said Jessica Streitmater, a Litchfield native and one of the student co-founders of the site told the New Hampshire Business Review. “There are quite a bit of people that do care packages, but we do have an edge on that too because we make it customizable.”

The startup is looking for $5,000 on Indiegogo to fund interns in the Boston area so that they can expand their service to Boston University. The company will remain headquartered in New Hampshire. There are incentives on the Indiegogo campaign for donations up to $800. At the time this story was written they’ve raised $975 of their $5,000 dollars with 21 days to go.

“we have a lot of people who are really interested in the company and who would love to help us,” said Streitmater. “They ask, ‘How can I help?’ And we really needed the help… to get to Boston.”

Linkage:

Check Out Regaalo here

Help them out on Indiegogo here

Source: New Hampshire Business Review

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Startup New Hampshire Joins Startup America

The newest state to join the #Startup America partnership is New Hampshire. Startup New Hampshire celebrated joining Startup America at an event held in Manchester yesterday. That brings the grand total of Startup America partnerships to 222 across the country.

Startup America is free to join and gives your growth focused startup access to resources, lectures,meetings, events, merchant benefits, and other members in a collaborative effort to invigorate startups across the country.

At an event in Washington DC on Thursday night Startup America CEO Scott Case highlighted the fact that in addition to joining a network that’s now over 7000 startups strong, the Startup America team is building a great network of merchant resources and services for members. American airlines, and American Express are just two national well known brands that members have access to for discounts on flights and financial services.

During the event last night in DC, nibletz.com asked Scott Case in a Q&A section about two things a Philly Startup ListServ Member had asked about, health insurance and discounted legal fees for things like intellectual property law (IP). Case said that they do have law firms that are committed to offering discounted services for members and they are diligently working in the background to provide some health insurance company discounts members as well.

New Hampshire member can now take advantage of the resource pipeline available to Startup America partners.

“Startup New Hampshire is a tipping point for entrepreneurship here in NH. By connecting our entrepreneurs with the incredible resources that Startup America can provide, I would say we have a lot to look forward to in the further growing of this ecosystem,” said Jamie Coughlin, Startup New Hampshire champion. “Startup New Hampshire will serve a crucial role in uniting the different regions in New Hampshire with a singular focus and effort, as well as allowing us to disrupt the status quo in the process.”

“New Hampshire has a fantastic history of entrepreneurial spirit, evident in their “Live Free or Die” state motto,” said Scott Case, Startup America CEO. “We’re excited to see all of the amazing young companies in the state get access to the resources they need to succeed.”

Startup New Hampshire can be found at their kick ass url livefreeandstart.com

Linkage

Find out more about Startup America here

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