Welcome to the last American Vagabond
here in studio. Joining me today is formerly
Ramiro Armani, now Hakim Anwar. I'll let you
talk about your new name and why you
did that, but we'll talk about the privacy
above phone that I think I'm kicking myself
still to this very day for
not using it. We'll talk about
some why it's important. But we'll talk about,
you know, any the creator of the above
phone, an advocate for privacy, and, you know,
technologically stepping in the right direction and a
couple of things he'll talk about today that
you might find interesting. How are you, brother?
Good to see you again. Doing so well,
man. Good to be in person. Yes. In
the studio. I love it.
Well, so, you you were talking about what
that new name means. And, this is the
first I'd heard about it. I didn't know
he had changed his name. So why did
you change it to Hakim Anwar? Tell us
about that. Yeah. Well, I think when I
was starting my activism, it was actually when
Derek invited me down to Mexico for, the
greater reset. And I thought I wanted to
move to Mexico at the time because all
the we were in the depth of the
the pandemic,
and I was like, okay. I'm I am
Mexican now. So
I gave myself a name that reflected that
and I think as I came forward,
I wanted a name that really reflected my
roots and so I went to Hakim and
War. And I think that a big part
of that is my my life's mission is
making healing technology. So Hakim
means healer and Anwar means illuminated. So together,
it's illuminated healer and, yeah. I like it.
Some of the things I've spoken about at
the last Greater Reset were energetics technologies because
I think that there's a lot of weapons
being used against us. Right? Informational weapons, energetic
weapons.
We also have
to intuit that there are energetic
forces of healing that we can use. And,
I mean, frankly, humanity is gonna need it.
Oh, interesting. Okay. Well, let's elaborate on that.
And by the way, I think it's interesting
that, you know, it I don't hear it
often that people decide to change their name,
you know, other than, like, trying to hide
from the law or something like that. You
know? So I like it. I like that,
you know, do so do you feel that
that, you know so, Ramiro, was that your
birth name that you were born with? They're
both pseudonyms.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. They're both pseudonyms. And and
I think, you know, I think So that's
so I'm completely out of the loop. I
have no idea what's going on.
It's something I'm pretty private about. Right? I
let people come to their own conclusions, which
maybe maybe is a mistake.
But, you know, I feel like we all
we all have the liberty to invent ourselves.
Right? The people that we wanna be. And,
you you know, a family name means little,
I think, because I think we're all realizing
that we're we're in this together, and we're
really looking for new leaders to shine up.
So I think that if you need to
change your name, do it. Yeah. Hey. I
love it, man. I love it. I'm just
seeing it. It's that's that's the whole thing.
I like the fact that it's, you know,
something you don't often see. But so why
don't why don't you elaborate on what you
open with there in general? You know, the
idea of of, you know, dip energy and
and, you know and so how do you
mean that exactly? Do you mean that as,
like,
actual energy? You're talking about, like, personal energy
and, you know, your your positivity and, you
know, elaborate for me. Yeah. Absolutely. It's it's
it's all interconnected. Right? We we can all
be antennas. So when you see a really
nice positive person, it does end up uplifting
you. But,
energetics in the sense it could be light
technology, it could be sound technology, it could
be electromagnetic
technology.
One person,
whose work I'm really attracted to is, doctor
Raymond Reif,
and,
he was famous for the Reif machine, which
is he was able to, he was able
to cure cancer in a study of about
16 people,
by matching the exact frequency
of the pathogen, the cancer pathogen inside those
people. And so, he was a doctor in
California in the 1950s,
and he made the world's most powerful microscope.
So he was actually able to observe
viruses
and other things like tuberculosis
bacteria,
shatter between his eyes. Like literally, it's not
the exact same thing, but a good metaphor
would be like getting a glass and having
an opera singer reach the resonant frequency and
it chatter. So Fascinating. And so and so
so using
energy to to, what, destroy it or or
how or break it up? Is that about
cancer?
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Breaking up cancer and matching
the frequency of different pathogens. And now his
work, you know, is over 50 years ago.
It's kind of evolved over time, and now
there's open source communities.
Spooky
is one of these modern rife machines, which
are like, they're, they're called pad based units
because they're actually in contact with the body.
We're kind of going off on a tangent
here, but I think the important part is
we really need to be looking outside of
medical institutions for our own health. And it
turns out,
vibrational medicine is the best medicine. Maybe that's
music for some people. Maybe that's yoga, which
is literally, you know, we're talking about. I
sit on a chair for 14 hours a
day. Without yoga and opening up that energy
body, my you know, it would be in
a much worse state. This is this is
interesting. This is why I asked that to
start. So it is an overlap. Right? So
you're talking about, like, actual, like, directed energy
to to have an effect, but also just
that the energy you produce, the mindset
that that it has an effect. I mean,
I I a 100% agree with that, like,
that they're 1 and the same. But what
I was gonna ask, I know I I
this is necessarily what we wanna talk about.
But so in regard to that, are is
it, like, let's say, I'm talking about a
pathogen or something. So the energy would in
a sense, it's it's easy to see how
you could break up, like, a cancerous concept
with energy. But let's just say it's a
pathogen. How does that work? Do you understand
that? Like, you explain that for us? That's
interesting. Sure. So, they call it Rife called
it the mortal oscillatory
resonance, the MOR rate of any pathogen, which
could be a virus in the body. It
could be bacteria. It could be literally anything.
And it there's a specific frequency,
which Rife measured it to be in a
fraction of a decimal. I think it was,
like, 4 or 5 places down. And it
has to be exactly
on the money. Otherwise, you're not gonna hit
the frequency. And this is unique for each
individual thing or just for all the stuff
he's dealing with? For it's unique for each
individual pathogen. Interesting. Absolutely. And he also discovered
this thing called a pleomorphism,
which when, some microorganisms
microorganisms,
like
bacteria or viruses
see that they're under attack, they can actually
shape shift and turn into different things and
then which then have different MORs. Interesting. So
it was really, really fascinating. So his microscope,
it had, what is it? It's like 20,000
times magnification,
which would make it more powerful than some
electron microscopes. Mhmm. And, the the important thing
about it, like electron microscope, you have to
kill the thing you're looking at. Right? You're
shooting electrons
into it. And so, he was able to
stain these pathogens in a live form and
actually see them change.
So, of course, after he passed away, someone
took the, someone vandalized the microscope and it's
completely gone, but there's lots of
Someone. Someone.
The industry that yeah.
Yeah. I think the aim I think it
I I believe it's the a AMA that
tried to defraud him. There's this there's a
whole Yeah. Public court case about him, and
it's a really excellent rabbit hole for people
to get through. Fast, man. And so they
they're just, I'm just interested in that in
general because, you know, I mean, I I
tend to the work I do today in
general, I tend to really try to focus
on,
you know, I mean, I guess, mostly just
talking about current events and trying to break
stuff down, but we're in a very, like,
surface level, not in the sense of, like,
the deep information, but not so much getting
into the esoteric and you you know, so
this to me is interesting because I my
point saying that is I have a strong
belief in
these different a lot of times things we
just simply can't prove. And so that is
so interesting when you get into the the
I don't know what word you would use.
The fact that it applies each way and
that, like, your physical,
you know, your your the way the energy
you put out into the world has an
effect on things around you, including your own
health, but then you can, in a legitimate,
verifiable, measurable way, use energy from some kind
of
device to effectively do that. I just think
that's so interesting. So here's this really cool
thing. And, yeah, the field is called bioenergetics,
but there's, now they have these units called
remote units, and you can actually interact with
people's DNA remotely.
So at home Kinda scary, to be honest.
It overlaps with things that
bother me today.
There is exactly. There this technology Nanotech and
Codes for for for for evil. Yeah. But
it's like at home right now, I actually
have a little vial of my blood that's
preserved in grain alcohol, and I can run
frequencies on that DNA.
And that DNA is attached to the rest
of me
through quantum entanglement.
Quantum researchers are now, like, seeing that this
that there actually is connection between all living
things this way. And, so what you can
do is you can make people feel sleepy.
So, like, for instance, I have this Of
course, crazy. Program.
Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. It's called the
daily wellness and it gets you ready for
bed. It starts to produce more melatonin than
as you're you're supposed to run it overnight.
And so when I first started working with
this, I was I was kind of skeptical.
Mhmm. But the thing about this particular program,
it goes in a loop. So if you
don't turn it off, it it continues to
go on. And so the 1st night, I
sleep really, really heavy. I like intense dreams.
It was hard to get out of bed.
Right? Just because I was still in that
zone. Then I wake up, it's like 11
o'clock, and I'm starting to feel sleepy again.
I'm like, What is going on? I looked
over at my computer. Program had run again,
and it was getting me ready for bed.
That's weird. And I was like, alright. You
know, that that was kind of a placebo
moment there. I was totally wasn't expecting that.
Mhmm. You know? So, that that's when I
started looking into it more. And yeah. Yeah.
It's just I mean, clearly, there's a ways
that that could be, you know, used in
a negative way. That's interesting. But so let's
let's bring it back to because I mean,
we I could I could literally talk about
that for that's a real it's just really
interesting
in a positive way, but also as, you
know, as most interesting things. Also, you can
see that being used in very nefarious ways.
Right? Overlapping with as my audience is probably
thinking right now, a lot of the things
that I've talked about, you know, labor and
COVID 19 conversations and a lot of stuff.
But so bringing that back to to,
you know, the technological aspect and stuff. So
how does this relate to your work and
what you're doing today? Yeah. Absolutely. So I
think it's another
like, it's another factor of my work, the
energetics work. But before I was doing that,
I was a software engineer in a previous
life. Right? Before I, decided to set off
and start my own company based on privacy
technologies. And I have, Derek Bros to really
thank me on that, to put me on
that path of algorithm
and building solutions for people. I was originally
part of the core team for the Freedom
Sol Network, and during during the
during the lockdowns, we we really
we didn't find many sane people around us
on the street. Right? Everyone was at home,
so everyone turned to the Internet. And that's
the beauty of of technology. You know? It
can be a uniting force for good. Mhmm.
And in my career, I've built web, mobile
mobile applications. I've built cloud infrastructure. I've built
robotic process automation. But none of it was
so powerful
as building a website to bring people together
for an event. Yeah. And that's when I
realized the power of technology. And I also
saw people get persecuted for that. Right? Mhmm.
We saw our our websites for DDoS by
different people. Our our community was and there's
Telegram scammers on Telegram everywhere, and that's when
I realized,
we need more protection than than anyone else.
And I decided to go on a deep
dive of, privacy and technology education. Mhmm. I
started a educational initiative called Take Back Our
Tech, which you can find on takebackortech.org.
And I was really focused I was really
inspired by,
guys like you and Derek for that primary
source objective journalism.
And so I decided, hey. Like, let's not
just assume
they have visibility into everything. Let's actually look
at what you can study and what data
they're capturing,
and let's get a real assessment for how
how how vulnerable we are. Yeah. So that
Yeah. We do tend to kind of have
that view that they're just omnipotent, and there
are some levels, but not everywhere. Maybe they'd
like you to think that too. Right? Right.
Right. Maybe or maybe they are watching everything,
but there's so many of us. What they
what can they really do it? That's that
point from, like, the post well, probably before,
but, you know, world, 9:11 concept where the
net was so wide that they had so
much data that there there's no ability to
actually stop anything, but they can sure as
hell look back and use it against you.
Right? That's that's fascinating.
Yeah. Absolutely. And so it brings it brings
us to today where,
we have been researching the best privacy technology
available. We have our own privacy phone. We
also just launched our privacy laptop, and these
are all solutions I wanna put into people's
hands so that they can start to create
and put their own message out there. And
at least if they're working peer to peer,
if they're working on solutions in their hometown,
have private ways to communicate. Yeah. Because if
one thing is that certain, is that today
today, like, the best evidence of all is
is digital evidence. And and all this surveillance,
it's just a preclusion to control. So first,
they need to surveil you. Right? That's the
CIA playbook. The first 2 thirds of an
operation is them just sitting there and collecting
data. And then they come at you on
the last 3rd. So,
I wanna prevent people from from being controlled
by these technocrats.
The lies. I mean, this is just such
an important I mean, what's crazy to me
is that despite the fact this is such
an obvious issue for the, whatever you wanna
call it, establishment, the technocratic, you know, organization,
that
that you you get why people will be
resistant to step into it. But it's such
an obvious open market. You know, clearly, there
are enough people in the world for this
to you'd expect to see more companies stepping
into this field, but you just don't. I
find that interesting.
But
what I love is it so, basically, you
highlight that you just were like, hey. I
like this, and I wanna change this, and
you just make a phone. I just I
just not everyone can do that. Right? So
let's talk about that process and how, you
know we know we I know we've talked
this before, but it's been a while since
we've talked about it. So let us know
about that. And so how did it start?
Where is it currently in regard to the
phone in specifically? Absolutely. So it was because
I was paranoid, and I was like, okay.
If we're gonna work on this, let's try
and do it as privately as we possibly
can. Hide our hide our identities, and
so,
well, we are standing on the shoulders of
giants and a lot of other people who
who did the important work, like, build the
operating system, and I think what we did
was we came in and productized it because
it is an open source piece of software.
It's very raw. It needs to be refined.
Right? You can't just expect someone off the
street to get one of these phones in
their hands and start using it to their
day to day life. So we realized, like,
we could be the missing link and come
up with, good communication solutions,
figure out the best apps to use. And
so our company is called Above. The product
is called Above Phone. You can check it
out at abovephone.com.
And, since last year, we've had so much
amazing growth. We, we have our email, we
have our email server. We have a calendar
server. We have a VPN with multiple locations
in the United States. These are all things
that people need because, our Internet service providers
are trying to monitor everything we're doing. Right.
And in most cases, they're selling off that
data. There's even, like, joint ventures between, telecom
companies to to sell that data.
And,
so we're we're building all these private software
services because we wanna make Google and Apple
obsolete. Mhmm. Since then, there's also been a
lot of growth in the open source space
to so we now we see things like,
offlinely voice keyboards, which is super, super useful
if you're, you know, you're communicating a lot
with people. Mhmm. So I'd love to demo
some of this stuff. We might I might
not be able to share my screen or
anything. But,
yeah, there's just been a lot of growth.
And I think the most important part is
we've been able to persist and grow. Right?
Yeah. We're we're kind of fighting uphill, like,
against again, this is a Google less phone.
There's no connections to Big Tech, Google, Apple,
any of those. And so not only has
it been able to survive, but it's been
able to flourish. And I think any
any savvy person maybe maybe, who who's conscious
about this stuff should take a step in
this direction because now it's easier to use
than a normal phone, and you've got more
features, which I'd I'm happy to share more
about. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, I look.
I'm I'm I'm almost embarrassed as I said
before that I haven't actually you know, because
I I've had this phone for a very
long time. I got it right when you
first started this. Yep. And it's just like
and so trust me, I get the not
resistance is the wrong word, but why it's
difficult for people to make this transition. I
myself am just can't find you know, but
it's I'm I'm making I'm making a promise
to myself right now that I'm gonna go
through this because this is so incredibly important,
you know, that we all see the problems.
And this is not the conversation from 10
years ago or before where it's like, well,
maybe, kind of. We know as a matter
of fact that we are being surveilled We're
being the data is not just being taken
for government uses. It's being taken. It's being
sold. It's being, you know,
collected and organized. And, you know, so this
is such an important thing. So, you know,
what do you find is the biggest resistance
to people making this transition? You know? And
go ahead. It's exactly what you you pointed
out. Right? It's this kind of this anticipation
of all the changes you might have to
make, which it doesn't have to be so
bad for for people. Right? They can kind
of pull off, maybe one service at a
time. And for some people, a lot of
people use 2 phones at once. So maybe
they have a phone that they use to
communicate with their family, but the above phone
is their private phone that they use for
private communications. Things like going off grid,
speaking with their freedom cell, and and things
like that. And some people just completely switch
culture, which is which is a really good
option. Now, if you're coming from the Apple
landscape, it's a little bit more of a
of a paradigm shift, but it's still it's
still easy. And one of the things we're
we're really proud of at our company is
we're there to help you. So anytime you
get a phone from us, we we have
a we have a 45 minute call where
we just sit down with you. We get
your old phone and your new your new
phone. We help you transfer stuff over. That's
good. That's awesome. Which which by the way,
I I I take you up on that
pack and promise and we'll we'll get you
an upgraded phone. Make me do it. Make
me do it. Make you do it. Because
sometimes you just need that accountability. Right?
Absolutely. Well, so go why don't you go
into to the developments on this side? Because,
I mean, I mean, I'll tell you when
when I first saw this thing,
it was immediately evident that this was you
know, it it it's like any other phone.
I mean, it really is. And it it's
very it's it's the the the difference was
whether or not and, like, you can explain
this. You you know, as I understand it,
you can use all the same things if
you wanted to. You could turn it into
an Apple phone, right, if you really wanted
to. But that's is that still correct? Like,
you add these Google things to it, but
the point is you shouldn't because that just
defeats the purpose.
Right. So it's like a a phone that
doesn't make any big tech connections to Google
and Apple. And first, it's like, well, why
are they even involved in the phone? Right?
Can't the phone just live by itself? But
then you have things like Uber and Lyft
and Airbnb and all these things that require
location.
And what you don't realize is that these,
location services that Google and Apple run, they're
not just using GPS satellites, they're actually using
WiFi access points. Mhmm. And we have become
instruments for their own surveillance. Because when you're
going around and you have a normal phone,
your phone is sending out all the Wi
Fi networks that sees nearby. Those are getting
sent off to Google and Apple. Right? There
is a recent case, a few months ago
where researchers at the University of Maryland
found 2,000,000,000 Wi Fi access points in Apple's
Wi Fi positioning system. And they're essentially able
to abuse that system to see
all of the Wi Fi points on Earth.
Right. 2,000,000,000 points that covers
every,
basically every populated area on Earth. Now here's
here's kind of the interesting part. They were
able to see deserters
from Ukraine Army,
from people who were running away for mobilization.
They saw their Wi Fi networks go from
Ukraine to a nearby country. Interesting. In a
darker note, they saw Wi Fi access points
disappear from Gaza
as, you know, the bombardment continued. So it's
that level of granularity
that both of these companies, Google and Apple,
have. Now imagine I mean, Google is a
huge military, tech technology contractor.
Apple doesn't portray itself to be, but, you
know, who know everyone at that level has
got some sort of relationship.
So they have this level of control. We're
becoming instruments, and we don't we don't own
our phones. So Mhmm. When this phone doesn't
make any connections to big tech, you're cutting
yourself off from that. Right. And like you
were saying, you can still do a lot
of the things you love without it. There
are private ways to install applications
from the Google Play Store. That you shouldn't
do though, but yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying
it's possible if you like, I think that
my point was that makes the transition easier
if you wanted to try to slowly bring
yourself into it. Absolutely. Right? And this and
this phone will work on any service. It
will, work with every app. And there you
can download apps from the Google Play Store
more privately. There's this app called Aurora store.
We might have talked about it last time.
There's this one dude in India and some
other developers who are building it. But essentially,
it's like an anonymized pool of Google accounts
that everyone uses to download apps. So, if
there's an app on your phone that you
like using, chances are you can probably use
it on the above phone and you can
use it with increased privacy.
So, in terms of, like, additional features
about it, you can do things like, you
can portion off different parts of your phone.
So sometimes apps has an app ever asked
you, hey. Can I see your photos?
Mhmm. Like, they ask for that permission. Usually,
you give them access to your entire phone.
Yeah. And because these apps are proprietary, no
one can read the code, they could be
taking your entire photo vault. Right? Right. WhatsApp
is, you know, WhatsApp is notorious for all
the permissions it takes. So with, with Graphene
OS, which is the underlying operating system, they
have things called storage scopes,
which you can pick a folder on your
phone, and then you can trick the app
into thinking it has access over your entire
phone Interesting. When it really just has that
folder. I love it. I really wish I
knew more about this stuff in general as
to just, you know, the the the freedom
it allows you when you truly understand how
these things work and to be able to
build stuff like this or be involved with
it all. It's, you know, I just it's
worth knowing more about this. So so what
is essentially
and and go in deeper if you want
to in regard to the features and and
not even just the phone, like other products.
But I like, you know, where are you
going next is what I was gonna ask.
But if you wanna go deeper on that,
I'm sure people wanna hear, you know, what
else, you know, what what else other products
and what else can this thing do that
would benefit people today? Yeah. Absolutely. I I
think one of its most important features is
that allows you to have ownership of your
data. So for instance, you
can use this app called New Pipe. And
in fact, if you have an Android phone
at home, you can look up this app
store called F droid. There's free and open
source apps on this. That means the code
is fully transparent. You can download some of
these apps that I'm talking about.
So, New Pipe is really awesome because it
lets you download YouTube videos directly to your
phone. Mhmm. So the audio or the video,
and now you have, like, you're owning your
your data. Yeah. So I remember when TLav
was, heavily getting censored and there was a
pirate live streamers like You mean you mean
yesterday?
Go
ahead. It's just continuous. Right? It never it
never stopped. Go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry.
And, you know, at a certain point, we
might see ourselves getting cut off from information.
I I mean, I I'm of the belief
that we should try and keep that information
locally as for as long as we can,
especially if it's useful content.
So with these with these, with these different
apps, you can do that. You can download
podcasts directly to your device. You can download
videos directly to your device. What I didn't
mean to interrupt your point. What were you
gonna say? So when TLAB was being censored,
what was your your point there? What were
you gonna say that? My my point was
essentially you can hang on to things
even if you don't have to trust third
parties to Got it. Got it. Got it.
Handle your media for you. Yeah. Very important
today. It's a lot of I mean, so
many people earlier in this. I think it's
it's less and less these days because we
see it, but, you know, had put all
their eggs in the YouTube basket and and
lost
a decade of content because they didn't have
it saved anywhere else. Right? And so that's
obviously important today to save these things because
it's rapidly
vanishing. You know? I mean, I I even
I even wonder about things in regard to,
like,
you know, my website in general. Like, I
feel like I'm noticing things that are no
longer there and how whether, like, it's a
hosting or or or, you know, domain names
and how these things could be abused. You
know? So very important, I think.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And, I mean, some of these so these
are kind of like open source. They're traditionally
thought of as like scrappier amateurish projects, but
really
excuse me. You look at some of these
big companies and they're not as responsible about
our data, you know, as you think they
are. There there's actually massive holes in their
security and privacy. I mean, they don't seem
to care about privacy.
You would think that AT and T, which
is one of the longest running partners of,
United States, surveillance apparatus. Right? Like, super proudly,
openly,
rerouted their entire networks to facilitate
surveillance. You would think they would have learned
something from the NSA,
but they're putting,
tons of our call and text data
on,
on these longs heard term storage providers. So
there is a recent hack. Don't know if
you heard about it. Yeah. I'll bring it
up for you. Go ahead. Yeah. So there
is a recent breach,
data leak,
of, AT and T's call detail records, Just
not not just for them, but also for
many resellers. Right? There's in the United States
at least, there's there's 3 main companies. And
the other companies, they're just really reselling from
the 3 main networks. Mhmm. AT and T
is the biggest, and all 110,000,000
customers,
all of their call and text records were
found in this database.
So just like
all calls and texts from May to October
22nd and then one day, January 2nd. So
it's like,
why and they're restoring it on Amazon Web
Services. So
if you think about that, what type of
investigation is just like, alright. Give me give
me the calls for everyone in the United
States. We'll we'll search through it. Right? You
have to, like, think, why why is that
data So they're not supposed to be holding
all that, obviously. Right? So it's showing you
that they're they're whole you know, everything is
being tracked and held even by these companies
as opposed to the government. And it's a
surveillance program we we we know really nothing
about. It reminded me of, the hemisphere program
because, I mean, these these call logs are,
anonymized. Right? So they don't have any
they don't have a name to them, but
they have a phone number. Right? And then,
I mean, any of us could look up
that phone number and see who's associated with
it. But because they're, because they're all the
calls and texts in the United States for
a given time,
it reminds me of the hemisphere,
program, which was a, warrantless surveillance program by
the Drug Enforcement Agency,
all the way back in, like, I think
the program was launched in 2008, operational in
2010.
So over 10 years ago, and back then,
they were using it for burner phones. You've
seen those shows where they do, like, a
drug deal, and they're like, alright. I got
you. And they break the clock. Doesn't work
at all. Like,
does not work. That's funny. All these things
and it's probably put in there so we
think that it does. Right? Just conspiracy. I
know. But let me ask you this about
the the AT and T thing in general.
Right? So in your opinion,
what do you think the likelihood is that
this is not
now you you made the point that it's
surprising they haven't, you know, learned. Like, what
do you think that either this is a
deliberate,
you know,
allowance for this reality to happen? And then
secondarily, do you think that might be in
the sense of, you know or let me
just put it that way. Do you think
that's a deliberate thing? And do you think
that that might be for a certain reason?
I think they're too big to care. Mhmm.
I I think that they have so much,
insulation,
and they're so friendly with,
you know, intelligence agencies, just the government in
general. They're they're, you know, they're one of
the strongest partners that,
and they're and they're too big. Right? Because,
what their their official response was, we're not
sure if this was us or a third
party. So they're you know, they have subsidiaries
and contractors that they work with, and they
can't even keep tabs on them.
For for a 110,000,000
people, they're they're call detail records.
Right? So, it comes back to this concept
of 3rd parties.
And and one thing we wanted to do
with our with our company, Above, is we
wanted to have we wanted to minimize 3rd
parties. Right. We're privately owned, and we don't
work with any third parties. Like, everything from
our own personal email to our chat system
to, our our call system, all of that
is run-in house in our data center. And
that's one of the things that I think
companies should look to. Otherwise, if you trust
third parties with your servers and software services,
you're gonna get crowd striked. Right. That's exactly
what happened. Right? Exactly. Well, why why don't
you touch on that and and connect that
to what we're talking about? For those who
don't know what that was and and, you
know, and now we're talking about the we
recently covered this in general, but the idea
of these the CrowdStrike aspect being used or
and even before that, essentially, being brought in
in some of these cases as, like, the
argument that this will help protect these things
end up being the vulnerable point. Right? So
explain that and and how this connects to
what we're talking about. Yeah. Absolutely. So CrowdStrike
was, it's this, cybersecurity
firm, $83,000,000,000
cybersecurity firm.
They were trusted with the the first investigation
after the SolarWinds hack that impacted, like, a
lot of government agencies.
Also trusted with the DNC email servers. So
this company, which is Giant, they have around
29,000
customers in most western countries and Asian countries.
They have their software embedded into,
a lot of important infrastructure
at, at companies like airlines. And so, last
Friday or the Friday before that, I think,
they pushed a faulty update to Windows servers,
and so it all went down. Right? And
the problem isn't necessarily
Windows versus Linux. A lot of Linux users
were saying, well, this is why we use
Linux. And it's like, well, yeah. But in
this particular case, you would have been fine.
But if you trust a third party with
the security of your servers, they can break
it at any time.
And a lot of people speculate, you know,
that maybe this was was done on purpose
to cause some larger event, which is which
is totally feasible.
But but, again, it just comes out to
these these people have a lot of money
and power, but that doesn't, you know, that
doesn't necessarily translate to competence.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you're right, though. That's a
just like we say,
people tend to pretend the government,
in in many senses, is just this omnipotent
always watching concept. And I frankly don't think
that's always the case in some areas, but
we that that give it's almost like they've
created that technocratic phenopticon where we think that
so we act accordingly when in reality, there's
some cases of some of the most incompetent
people I've ever seen in my life. You
know? And so, it's interesting though that that
we and the other point is then we
should obviously, as I'm sure you agree, consider
if something like this may be done to
create the call for the solution that they
already have in the wings. Right? The classic
concept. And I think that's where I same
that I was kinda suggesting before is that
I I wonder
how much of this like, I guess my
point would be if you're an AT and
T or something like that. Sure. It could
be that they're just so big they can't
figure it out, but, you know, they're also
wildly they have so much money, so much
ability to take the time and money and
spend to try to figure out how that
doesn't happen. Like, as a company, you would
know that that would be seen as a
detriment.
And maybe it's because you know that the
they know they have nowhere else to go.
But I would argue from a company perspective,
you that's it's bad. It looks bad. You
you hurt your your customers. So my point
would be that it's hard for me to
believe that this would just be like a
whoopsie. You know, the same thing happened again,
which is always possible. But all these events
coming together,
I genuinely believe some elements of this are
about,
you know, creating the justification for what we
all kind of see building. You know? Yeah.
That's a fair point. Maybe, like, eroding the
the trust in really large institutions
to to and then you have things like
the, you know, the, the UN Digital Compact,
which you and Derek were just talking about.
And there's a whole there's a whole cluster
in there about Internet governance. So maybe that
completely plays into that as we show how
bad everyone is. And this is why we
need a cyber security framework that the whole
world can follow. And that way, we can
protect the Internet and hold these hackers accountable.
And and it it could also be a
a level of just, like, you know, like,
it my point is it doesn't always have
to be some kind of, like, coordinated deliberate
action. Like you're saying, it could be a
level of, like, almost willful laziness. That's like,
well, you know, if we just leave it,
so this will probably happen as well. And
that way, it's never let a good crisis
kinda thing. You know? But but either way,
I mean, we all see the building of
I mean, the the concept of we need
to reimagine,
you know, build back better kind of a
site scenario,
it's obvious that they're driving in these solutions
in other ways. So even if this was
a random thing, it's still being used to
drive in that same solution. You know? And
I think that's a really dangerous direction. Because,
you know, rightly so, people who are just
affected by this are gonna say, you know,
that's not okay with me. You we have
to fix this problem. You know? And there
might be, as we Derek and I were
just talking about, there might be solutions that
don't involve giving up all of your you
know, giving up anonymity and so on. Right?
And that's exactly what we're talking about. Let
me ask you this actually. Do you think
it's possible
for an AT and T sized
company to
adopt your practices and what you think would
be, you know, the the right direction? Is
that even possible for a company that size?
I don't I don't think so. I I
I know there's there's a name for this
this concept where where organize gays organizations get
so big, they can't even handle the amount
of data and the and the the amount
of connections, and they have to outsource certain
things. But I I think I think that
it I mean, it's the same thing with
food, isn't it? Like, how much, how much
food can you really produce before you have
to start doing things like adding in additives
to preserve the shelf life or
to,
to make things more efficient. And I think
at a certain,
it's just human nature not to be handled,
to be able to handle things at a
certain scale, and things start degrading. So that's
that's the that's the metaphor I would make.
I I did wanna make one more point
of Real quick, though. I would simply add
that's exactly I would argue that's why we
shouldn't. I mean, it's not necessary to go
to this mass production level. I just simply
don't agree with that. And that's exactly where
we end up, where we are feel driven
to make these compromised choices because that just
is the world. We don't need it like
that. You know, we can use smaller local
kind of concepts, and it works the functions
just well just fine. So go ahead. And
and that totally used to be the case.
Right? I mean, I'm sure you remember the
days where email was a lot more it
feels a lot more community based. Right? Maybe
you had email through your Internet service provider,
but anyone could run an email server. Mhmm.
Now today, there's there's a handful of email
providers, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail.
Always how it ends up. ProtonMail
is now just a big tech provider as
like the rest of them. Right? Mhmm. It
didn't used to be like this. Right? Software
used to be,
anyone should be able to run an email
server. So we Right. We have a few
1,000 customers on our email server, but we
we look into a future where the the
computing for our community could be handled at
the local level Mhmm. Where someone you trust
in your community is handling your end to
end encrypted messaging. That's great. I I love
that. I love that. Somebody that you, you
know, at least know and can call and
talk to and somebody that you think you
trust being, like, the the manager of your
this is actually really fascinating because thinking about
where the world is today. Right? Where now
we need some kind of, like, community data
manager. You know, so it's like makes managing
all of the data control flowing through your
one community.
I love stuff like that. Right? I mean,
that's it's you know, I personally, my mind,
I wanna go in the other direction. I
wanna go back before this stuff was even
around. You probably disagree. But, like, I I
just think that if we're forced to go
in this direction, right, where I think we
can kinda see that this is happening whether
we like it or not, that's the kind
of solution I can get behind. And the
only reason that will be pushed back on
is because it's not something that can be
centrally managed, in my opinion. Right? Like, if
you're gonna comment, go ahead. I was, the
only thing I was gonna say is, like,
so back before that time, you know, thing,
companies had federation, which would mean chat protocols
were interoperable with each other. Right? Even at
AOL
and, Apple Apple Messenger, like the original versions
would federate with something called Jabber or XMPP,
which is a chat protocol, which is just
a fancy way of saying here are some
rules so so we can chat with with
each other over the Internet. Right. And they
would allow federation. And then it kinda shifted
into, no. No. No. I want all these
customers for themselves. I want people in my
walled garden. I'm not gonna communicate with other
people. Mhmm. So I think it's gonna take
an organic shift for people to say, hey,
no, this is these are actually the qualities
that I want in my software. And so
XMPP
is a software that's been around for 20
years. Mhmm. It has all the features that
something like Telegram or WhatsApp has. It has,
end 10 encrypted encryption for the audio calls,
the messages, and the voice calls. And it
works similar to email. Like, you you can
sign up for free, you get something that
looks like an email address, and you can
immediately start messaging people. So I think in
the future, as as things start heating up
and, you know, you might see a shorter
cycle time from
maybe someone doing something wrong,
to,
to a consequence about it, that that smart
people are gonna shift to private communications. And
I think XMPP is an excellent way. There's
also many other solutions.
Well, so what I was gonna ask is,
you know, taking this idea of a more
localized in you know,
management of of these processes to at least
try to ensure that you're not being it's
not being used for companies or government access
and so on. Do you think that's, I
guess, scalable? Like, the idea like, let's just
say you
community started doing this.
Do you think that would have a negative
effect on on the current connectivity people have?
Or do you you know, could that be
managed that way in your mind? I think
so. Yeah. Absolutely. I I think that I
think that I mean, they're they're just protocols
at the end of the day. And if
they're if these servers are able to talk
to each other, it doesn't matter where the
server lives. It just matters that it's connected
to the Internet. And as long as there's
not any meddling going on at the higher
levels,
then, you know, there's nothing preventing,
people from running their own servers for everything.
Right? This is a this is a movement
called self hosting that is becoming more and
more popular where people just run their own
software services. Right? Anyone can rent a cloud
server. And maybe for people in the audience,
you're you're maybe a little bit more proficient
technically. You don't mind learning. You don't mind
reading documentation.
Maybe you start self hosting a few services.
You can look into XMPP.
There's also a bunch of great projects like
snicket,
which is s n I k k e
t, which you can just sign up and
they'll actually run a server for you. So
you pay once and then they run your,
they they start an encrypted messaging server for
you, which you can use with XMPP.
Interesting. So, that's something I think Tila could
definitely use right now. You know? Because we've
got we got booted out of Discord and
a lot of different Really? Yeah. We got
bit banned from the platform.
Why?
The same old stupid reasons. I mean, frankly,
you know, I I I actually rarely used
it to engage. I just posted our content
in there, people to come check it out.
And and, I forget their argue. I don't
even think we got an official
reason. Yeah. It just we just got banned.
And I think, you know, that we're trying
to we've been shuffling different we tried wire
for a minute. You know, it's just like
these things. It's not even close to the
same. It's you know? So that would be
something we should you know, maybe Maybe you
could set up a TLIVE version for us.
That'd be great. I would love to. Yeah.
That'd be awesome, man. And we definitely need
that. You know? And so I I think
this is
difficult for some people because it's you know,
I like host just hosting your own servers.
Right? Usually pretty expensive these days unless I
am, you know, outdated and then technical expertise
to do it, set it up, manage it,
a lot of electricity. And even then, the
issue that maybe you lose connection or electricity
in your local area and that would affect
a larger system. Yeah. You know, but there's
obviously potential downsides, but I I argue that
this is something we should definitely lean into.
Do you see that direction going in a
way or that going in the direction of
that being less
problematic in the expense side? Like, is this
becoming more feasible for the average person? I
think that we just need to get creative
with our monetization schemes. I don't think it's
that expensive. It's like,
you know, how much do do companies pay
for something like Google Suite? Maybe they pay,
like, 10 to $20 a month. Mhmm. Imagine
getting a group of your friends, maybe there's
a dozen of you, and putting that much
into a local server server pool. And you
just appoint one person to to set up
the server.
You know, server servers aren't that expensive. You
could see yourself paying maybe, like, 40 to
$60 for a really well equipped server. And
there's software that you can use to run
multiple,
multiple, like, applications on 1 server. So there
are ways you can make it cost effective.
It just takes
committing to committing to that structure. Yeah. So
yeah. Yeah. I I think it's definitely possible.
And if you guys are interested out there,
we're starting to be open up a little
bit more about what software we use. So
we we we run our own VPN service,
which is actually it's based off of mesh
network software. But,
essentially,
I think with VPN is really, really important.
So when we use our our software services,
you know, you have an end to end
encrypted connection. And And if you're using our
email server or our, encrypted messaging server or
a video conferencing server,
your, your connection is actually never leaving the
data center. So that's that's really, really special.
Yeah. The other part to it is that
alright. Then there is the, the other person
on the other end of the connection. Right?
Whether you're texting them or you're using a
different messenger, you also need to get them
on board. It can't be, like, a one
party thing. So okay. So that's that's one
of the largest limitations then. Right? Does it
you can't just adopt yourself and then acts
and to communicate with people that aren't on
that
network? Okay. It's like how do you get
how how do you get someone else to
adopt it to a way that is,
is,
maybe
appropriate enough or to the extent enough where
both of you feel protected. Yeah. So a
good example of this is, like, Jitsi video
conferencing, which I'm sure you've heard of maybe
a little bit, which is a really nice
because you don't need an app. Like, if
you invite your friend to it, you don't
need an app. They can kinda just show
up to a meeting link URL, and then
you hop into a call. It's very zoom
like. But if you're running your own Jitsi
server, it is end to end encrypted. And
once you end the call, there is no
trace. So I see in the future, right,
we're gonna maybe we're gonna we're gonna see
less and less people using cell networks Mhmm.
Thanks to all these crazy things that they're
doing and and they're dropping the ball and
hopefully using these end to end encrypted communications.
So I understand it make sure I'm understanding
it correctly. So you you can communicate, but
it's not secure in that sense? Or, like
so you set up your own server bank
and, you know, your own location and you
run this network, and some has an iPhone,
and you wanna talk to that person. Is
that not possible, or it just is, but
it's not secure?
There's there's I think there's just layers that
you're you're passing through which aren't aren't vetted.
So for instance, it's like I get someone
which you can totally do with this on
an iPhone. You can run XMPP. You can
use that Snicket app that I was talking
about. Mhmm. Okay. So we're messaging back and
forth. And in transit, I know it's encrypted.
But what do I know about Apple's keyboard?
Do I have the the code for Apple's
keyboard? How do I know not nothing is
being logged when someone's typing into the keyboard?
Which there is a ton of logging happening
at least on the, on the Google side
with different keyboards
there. And so, yeah, there's, like, different, I
would just call them leaks in the communication
chain. So I think for for maximum privacy
and security, you'd wanna use something like a
d Google phone, an above phone. Mhmm. Have
both parties on that and also be using,
Internet based communications. Right. Right. So the reason
I ask is that's important because the point
is that that so the limitation I thought
so it's actually less limiting than I thought.
It's just more of a security issue. Right?
But I think it's important that, you know,
you build these networks
that you can still, if you want to,
overlap with the current existing because you're gonna
get a lot of people that, you know,
like, if you simply knew that you had
to, like it's like having an app, like,
a communication app that you can't talk to
us unless you download the app. A lot
of people just don't do it. You know
what I mean? And so this is that
that's I'm glad that that works out that
way. So I think that's important and I
think this is I mean, I'm I'm not
as,
keeping up on a lot of these new
directions and steps, and I should. I just
think that's that's exactly what I think we
should lean into. And I it's I think
that this is not as difficult as it
may seem to some people, myself included. You
know? So it's important to talk about. We'd
love to get you onboarded. So, I mean,
if if you think Ryan should, completely divest
himself from big tech, leave him a comment.
Let's all motivate each other. Please.
Seriously. Upgrade. Well, you know, as I'm thinking,
just what I was thinking about what you're
talking about, that is, is, you know, like,
we we should definitely try to work more
together and, you know, we could build stuff
just for TLab. Like, I think we need
that, you know, and, obviously, it's a fine
the financial side. You know, that's why you
guys support us. We're trying to build out
these actions, but we should talk more about
this for sure. So so where where are
you know, we talked about the phone. Right?
But you have there's a computer. Correct? Yes.
Is there anything else that you've added since
last time we talked in the kind of,
you know, what rev whatever you call it,
the the, repertoire?
There's there's a lot, you know, we have
a giant roadmap, but I think one of
the things is like good work takes time.
And so this is a second iteration of
the computer. You guys can check it out
at abovephonedot
com/book.
This is a, Linux based computer.
It's running an operating system called, Arch Linux,
which is a really advanced version of Linux.
But the reason we like it, it it's
very configurable. Right? Arch could be as small
as just one terminal prompt or it could
be a full fledged operating system, And of
course, that's what we opted for.
And,
I I think the the real piece was
like, okay, what is the best way to
use Linux? Let's learn a little bit from
Apple. Right? That there's really beautiful gestures that
they have, which which you'll get to try
out here in a second, Ryan. Let's let's
learn a little bit from them. Let's learn
a bit little bit from the Windows side
and have a machine that is private,
that gives you access to a tremendous amount
of software, which Arch Linux does, thanks to
the Arch user repository,
which is one of the only decentralized
user repositories,
which I'm saying a lot of technical sounding
words. All that means is that anyone can
taste a piece piece of software and publish
it. So imagine your friends can, like, upload
software and you can install it in a
second. And then what we decided to do
was, like, okay. It's already hard enough setting
up a Linux system. Let's do all that
work for you. And then in the process,
we just built our own operating system. Mhmm.
And then we also made programs to to
make everything a lot easier. So if you
wanna install a piece of software, you can
literally search it in a program. You'll see
the image. You can click install. Right? No
terminal commands. That was something we wanted.
Good amount of our audiences, you know, the
the older generation,
and we wanted to support them, and also
new people too. Right? Because this is this
is hard enough already. People want the best,
and so we decided to, yeah, make it
as easy as What explain what what do
you mean by no terminal commands? What does
it mean? So, normally, in a Linux environment,
you know, you will do things like,
go in a terminal even to install software.
So like to say, let's just say to
install Zoom. Okay. On, on Arch Linux, you
might use the Pac Man package manager and
you might type Zoom after it and to
actually install it. So you need to know
the terminal commands. You need to know the
flags. That's that's too much. Right? That you're
learning a little bit. And and maybe some
Linux purists would get mad at me. Actually,
a lot of people in Arch Linux would
would would get mad at me for for
saying that. Right? People people should learn. Yes.
But we're kind of on a time crunch
here, and and there's a greater reason to
why we're using this technology. So why don't
we just make it easier for people and
And a lot of people out there
just may not want to, and that doesn't
mean they still might be open to the
change if you give it to them in
a way that's easily digestible. I mean, that's
that's yeah. I get it. I agree. It's
better for people to learn and understand it.
I see that with a lot of stuff
we do. But, you know, if someone's, like,
willing to take those steps but just doesn't
wanna go through that work, I get it.
I mean but it it's still important
to bring them along if they're interested. Because
what we're trying to do is not just
change one aspect of something. We're talking about
larger changes that affect the world, you know,
in in positive ways in our society and
our communities. And I just think a lot
of people are, you know, some some people,
like, are are just aren't capable of doing
those things. You know, maybe want to but
can't. So I agree with you. I think
it's important to try to make this as
user friendly as possible for the benefit of
everybody, you know? Everyone has their gifts, you
know? I'm not I'm not the mastermind behind
my garden. I I needed I needed a
lot of help with that one. Right? Right.
One thing I do wanna say is is,
so the the the computer is special, and
we're we're kind of building this ecosystem. So
we we have the email, the VPN,
the calendar service, our search engine,
and our video conferencing. And the reason it's
special is because all of these are something
I call universal Internet utilities. So usually when
you use even something like ProtonMail
or Apple Mail or Imessage,
you're in this ecosystem where you can only
use those apps. Right? It's not it's not,
it's not open. You can't use a different
device. That's not allowed. You can't use anything
besides the app.
There was a time where you can you
could use any different app, as long it
was if as long as it was compatible
with that communication method. So when you use
our messaging system, it works on your computer.
It works on your phone. And because we
do things like, we're working with this company
called GMP to bridge our encrypted messenger
with the phone network, you can actually send
text messages from your computer
and they show up on your phone and
and vice versa.
So you can do all these special things
and and have your computer and phone completely
synced. You can also sync the files between
your computer and phone as well. So now
you are kind of, circumventing the need for
any cloud system Right. And your computer and
your phone are literally just talking to each
other peer to peer. So synced all the
time even when you're apart? Or is it
have to update when it comes back into
same network? They have to be connected to
the Internet. Right. But as long as they're
connected to the Internet. Yeah. You can Well,
that that's fantastic, though. That was one of
the things that I think is what the
conveniences
of what these current devices are selling people
on. You know? And so it's the the
the more that you clearly are advancing with
this, you know, it seems like all the
same features are there if you just go
through the steps. Absolutely. As long as you
go through the setup. Yeah. So it's like,
okay. Can we take that setup out of
the equation and give it you know, get
it out of the box? So Yeah. Yeah.
I'm really interested just because I know you're
you're an Apple user for the time being.
So I wanted to I I wanna see
how how easy you think it is. Yeah.
Let's do it. Give me give me what
demonstration you got. What are we doing? Alright,
Ryan. I'm gonna give you a quick tour
of the above book and all the different
things that it can do. But first, we
have to start with its security. So I'm
turning it on, and you'll notice that I'm
presented with this, encryption page. And that is
because the above book is protected
by the, best form of encryption in the
Linux ecosystem
known as a lux encryption.
And, so that is going to prevent anyone
who, if they if they take your laptop
or otherwise sees your laptop, it's gonna protect
you from having your data taken. So that's
a really important security baseline
that we, we implemented on our computers.
And throughout the process of creating this, we
we really tried to learn from
the, the the Linux ecosystem, of course, but
also the Windows and and Mac ecosystems so
you can see
inspiration
from the the better parts of them, of
course, leaving the surveillance and tracking behind.
So this is what it looks like when
you're when you're logged in. You'll notice a
few things are just different. You've got this
top, top menu bar as we like to
call it. You've got your system tray where
you've got you'd be able to control things
like sound,
your Internet,
even, even your night light to to to
help color the screen red so that, the
the blue light isn't as harmful on your
eyes late at night.
And you can also control a battery from
there. At the bottom, we we have a
way to launch apps and to search anything
on the computer literally by
hitting the start key and beginning to type.
You can search anything on your computer.
I could look up
ways to run local language models or I
can pull up any app that I have
installed.
And here's how you can actually install an
application
using the software store. So on a normal,
Linux,
distribution,
you might be using the terminal to install
your packages.
That is hard for some people. It's it's
really not that hard, and and we do
teach you on our videos. But if you
wanted to use a menu, this one is
really nice and easy to use, and you
can see how easy it is. I'm gonna
search for Creda, which is a digital illustrations
tool. So I would just click on, the
download arrow, and it would walk me through
the process of installing it, which is fairly
easy. And then I also wanna point out
you can get things that,
would normally not be, not be private apps,
but you can still use them on the
above book. You have the freedom to. So
for those of you who use Zoom and
don't wanna use the web browser, you can
still get it installed on your computer. There's
also Spotify.
And so it's just getting you thinking, hey,
I'm using I'm using I'm used to using
these programs on my other device. You there's
a pretty good chance you'll be able to
use it on the above book. And, of
course, you can always ask us directly
using the chat on the above phone.com website
whether an application will work or not or
or if it's supported.
And, all of these, these pieces of software
are being
packaged through a user repository.
So there's people around the world just like
you,
packaging this software for you to use. That's
what gives you,
like, literally thousands and thousands of different types
of open source software to choose from. It
gives you the biggest library of open source
software that I have seen myself personally.
And,
with that, there's a bunch of awesome tools.
Of course, you've got your browser. This is
a d googled browser. It's called Ungoogled Chromium.
You can see it's set up to use
our search engine by default, but it has
a number of different things that protect you,
like our ad blocker that's already built in,
these different browser extensions that that
improve your privacy,
while you're you're browsing the Internet. You've got
things that will delete cookies automatically so
sites can't track you. Our analytics providers can't
track you over different websites. And of course,
you have things that just block,
just block ads and third party scripts, so
I can just turn that on like that.
So again, a normal browser would make connections
to Google. This this browser makes 0 connections
to Google.
And that and that's a very important thing
that we wanted. We wanted this laptop to
make zero connections to big tech. So you
can still visit all the, the the
websites you're expecting,
but you're not dealing with, the same tracking
that you would be on a normal laptop.
So, yeah, the browser is what you would
expect. This is our website, abovephone.com.
Here's how you can chat with us right
there.
So I encourage you to reach out to
us if you have further questions, But let's
look at some of the other awesome features.
We've got our
a way for you to do your work.
Right? Because a lot of us come from
a, maybe a Windows background
and are wondering, alright, am I still gonna
be able to get my work done? Well,
yes, you will because we have
editors like only Office, which will use native
Microsoft formats for their documents,
but, allow you to do all the same
things, right, even even kind of looks like
Microsoft Office. So, yeah, you have a lot
of,
excellent things that you can do,
and you can build PowerPoints, and you can
save them in native formats, and you can
actually collaborate with people who would be working
on Windows systems.
So just to give you a few examples
of these, we've got spreadsheets.
You can see here
that looks like you still have the nice
formulas that you would expect.
I can set,
France here. I'll give France
0
gold medals for that horrible opening ceremony.
And,
yeah, you can see that you can have
graphs, you can have formulas, You can still
do
exactly what you were used to doing on
your Windows environment, but, hey, you're doing it
in a more private manner.
So,
so that's a little bit about document editing
and getting your work done. And, of course,
there's a lot of other things, but I
would just wanna show you features that are
specific to
the Above suite, which is a suite of
software services.
So this is the email account. You'll notice
that it says,
atabove.im.
So you can use this account on your
phone. You can use this account on your
laptop. You can use it pretty much anywhere.
You can see I've subscribed to a few
email lists. I think T Lab is supposed
to be on here, but I'm not getting
the emails quite yet.
So you can add your email on there.
This is private way to browse your emails.
I am also going to show you our
encrypted messaging service.
The program you use on on the above
book is called Gagium, but the cool part
about Gagium is you'll notice that this person
here, Alice, is actually a cell phone number,
and so with this, with, our with our
XMPP service and also through a collaboration with,
JMP Chat, We can bridge these encrypted messages
over through the phone network, and we can
text people. So I can literally start sending
Alice text messages. She can text me back,
and it's all synced between my computer
and my phone. So that's really, really cool,
and I encourage you to try it. I
encourage you to, buy Above Suite when you're
getting your Above Book.
So we've got the encrypted messaging. We've got
the email.
We've got ways to install packages.
You've also got a ton of settings, way
more than a normal computer would have for
you to look through.
And then, as you're going through the device,
you will be presented with
videos learning how to use the device. So
you'll see me talking there, and it's just
a number of different videos to teach you
how to use the the computer. And, of
course, you get a free 45 minute call
with a real live person
to,
actually learn how to use a computer.
So that's a very quick first look. I
mean, there's so much there I couldn't pack,
but I'm gonna leave it at at this
for now. And I wanna thank you for,
letting me demo it to your audience. And,
again, you can purchase it at abovephone.com/book.
Other than what you just demonstrated and all
the changes, you know, is there anything else
that is going to be changed, added? You
know, like, what give me the the next
steps in regard to that, the computer or
the phone.
Yeah. Absolutely. Right now, we, we're just trying
to make the best computer possible. So it's
all about it's all about the back and
forth between us and our our customers or
community
looking at what they want. An exciting thing
that we did recently is we're experimenting with
local language models. So local AI on the
device itself and it coming out of the
box like that. What does that mean exactly?
So it's like, you know, if you've ever
used chat gpt, it can be super helpful.
It can, you know, draft up I'm pretty
pretty resistant to all that, but go ahead.
Yeah.
I am personally just because I think it's
a you know? I mean, not they I
mean, I'm I'm like anything, I'm open to
the idea that these things could be used
in ways
that might be able to push back on
certain you know, like, if it's not but
I think the the way it's being used
in the mainstream right now is very kind
of, you know, using us to help Mhmm.
Create what they wanna use against us. You
know what I mean? But Most definitely, which
which they would it's kind of like,
which they would do anyways. Right? Even if
you you spend the time and you do
your own research and you publish it out
there immediately scraped. Right. And I I think
the thing is is, like, is there a
way that,
is there a holistic way to to use
AI? And I I I wanna be optimistic
and say that there is.
So they are, there's,
just to mention the one collaboration we did
we did with, Mike Adams of Brighteon, and
he's working on a large language model, which
he fed a whole bunch of survival books
and also natural health books. And this AI
can can give pretty good answers to if
you have, like, questions about your health and
stuff. Interesting. And and I think And there's
clearly benefits to it. Right? I mean, it's,
like, it's it's something that an average person
by themselves couldn't do. Right? So it's definitely,
you know, a a powerful tool. And I
I might point to, like, if, you know,
you make something that's on here, privacy. You
know? I mean, it's it's a tool. Completely.
Yeah. But I I I my point is
that I am worried about where that goes
in a large sense for the mainstream. Right?
So same thing. On this side of it,
yeah, I mean, these things are definitely beneficial.
But, you know, I just do you do
you see any negative
pause possible side to
you know, like, so let's say you're using
your computer and you're using these things. Mhmm.
And then that you know, is that being
stored anywhere in your computer? Like, that information,
like, that is there a way that could
end up being used in some way if
you like, somebody takes your computer from you?
Well, it's it is. So it's completely offline,
so it's not stored in any other computers.
The other thing is that
these, these computers, you have them with the
option of full disk encryption. So even if
someone gets their hands on them There you
go.
Even if someone gets their hands on them,
you cannot break in and see the data.
I love it. So you have the option
of doing that when you purchase one of
these things. So we did we did follow,
you know, all the standard security practices when
when developing this thing.
And, this I mean, this computer can do
anything your your normal one could. You could
do Wi Fi, you could do hotspots, Bluetooth.
It has all that. It's beautiful. It's sleek.
Even the browser that you're using is already
way more private. So you can do things.
It's like already blocking ads. The VPN side
is also blocking ads and trackers. There are
multiple layers of technology working to protect you.
Mhmm. And if you're, you know, as I
think the only people that might have trouble
with it, if if they're, like, be creatives,
people who do a lot of video editing,
those people tend to be locked into things
like Photoshop,
which there are alternatives for this. In fact,
the computer I brought with me today, it's
got a, it's like, this one is called
the aluminum. We have 4 different models. There
there's the carbon which is the the most
the best of both worlds.
And then there's magnesium which is like the
business class, which you can you can see
all the the differences between the models
on the web page.
But, this one, the aluminum comes with a
stylus, so you can actually draw on it,
which is which is really cool. And there's
a lot of amazing open source software you
can use to create great graphics even to
edit videos, like do rough cuts and stuff.
Yeah. So I think that's just part of
the exploration is we we just wanna focus
on creating a really good base for for
people. Mhmm. And if people start to use
the laptop
roadmap ahead is, like, alright, what can we
do next? Can we do a, can we
do so here's one thing. Right?
When people switch from an iPhone to an
above phone, first thing they say one of
the first things they say is, I can't
text videos. How do you how do you
text videos?
You can't you were never able to text
video. Just Apple,
kind of did a, black magic trick and
on Imessage ecosystem. Right? All of your communication
goes through Apple servers. So they'll send a
big video over the Internet. Right? That's just
Internet, Internet based communication.
So we want to do things like, okay,
what if I tell what if I want
to send a video to Ryan? Mhmm. And
I text him and it actually gets up
I send a file, I guess, upload into
cloud. You get a link back, and this
link,
will delete on the first download.
So the other person gets it and they
pull the video down and then it's deleted.
So there's really been no trace of that
video. Yeah. There's not even a trace to
that video on our servers. Right? So there's
a lot of really cool things we could
do there. We wanna run a translation
service as well. Nice. So, you know, it's
it's it's saying, like, alright. How far how
far can we take this? And eventually, we
wanna do cloud storage and stuff. But Mhmm.
It it's we're already we're already, like, relatively
competitive with something like Google and Apple, the
amount of different services we have. And and,
yeah. Yeah. So So for the average person
listening who doesn't know you, this company,
and, you know, in senses that you know,
we we talk about AI,
cloud service. Like, why why would they see
this as different? You know? I mean, you've
already explained the obvious. Right? The idea of
the privacy.
But, like, for the average person that doesn't,
you you know, what what's to stop them
from thinking, well, how do I know that
cloud's gonna be, you know, just as, you
know, used for your own purposes? You know
what I mean? Like, what makes them how
do they know that that's not the same
thing? Great question. I mean, it it it's
just, you do have to trust your provider
at the end of the day. Whoever they
are, there's only so much your technology can
do, but we've tried to take all steps
possible
so that there is,
there so there's zero trust or minimal trust.
So, right, when you're using our messaging app,
XMPP,
all that is encrypted before it leaves your
device. Even if the messages are on our
servers, which they are for a period about
30 days before they get deleted Mhmm. They're
end to end encrypted. So they just look
like a gibberish on our servers. There's nothing
to seize. There's nothing to take.
Similarly with the internet traffic with our VPN,
all of that gets encrypted Mhmm. On phone.
And,
so there are really smart things that you
can do to protect your data from us
even. But Right. If you wanna be completely
responsible for your own services, you should you
should host them yourself.
And I think it comes down to,
we don't work with 3rd parties. So we're
we're actually working with our own data center.
Whereas if you were look at Google or
Apple or even Signal, you look at these
cloud service providers you're using. They're using things
like Amazon Web Services. Right? Right. So there's
a lot of different ways that they can
be attacked.
We don't use any big tech
server providers. We have our own data center.
Mhmm. And so we're trying to we have
this, we're trying to be completely responsible for
everything we're doing.
That's the point. That's that's what that's what
stands out to me is that, you know,
at the end of the day, like you
said, it this is the reality. At some
point, you have to essentially say, I'm gonna
go with them, and I I believe that
they're the best choice. But you're the only
one the buck stops with you. Yep. Right?
And I think that is just that doesn't
exist anywhere right now. You know? And so
other than you guys and things, you know,
in this direction. So I think that's important.
So if you have a problem, you can
reach out, and it's not that there's some
third party you have to talk to. Right?
And so I think that's powerful.
I I definitely think this is a a
the obvious direction that we should all be
taking. Right? And I I really I think
what you're doing is important, and I'm happy
to see it continue to grow, man. And
I hope it continues to spread. And we
need to talk offline about help using, you
know, something to help
whether it's another like, honestly, what I'm I'm
looking to now is potentially,
you know, I I'm not potentially I'm gonna
have to get away from HostGator, which I'm
absolutely not happy with at all. New servers
and so on. And and so, you know,
we can set something up here and do
our own hosting kind of situation. I'm I'm
up for that. Yep. I'm I'm happy to
connect you with with all of our resources
and and with software too. Mhmm. And I
just wanna leave we leave people with with
one thing. Right? This this this technology is
so so important because it's it's it's how
we interact with the real world, and it'll
bring us together.
So you have to realize with certain pieces
of technology, you don't control it. It's just
a flip of the switch, and it can
be taken from you. Right. A really good
example of this is, the contact tracing Right.
Which, you know, they they rolled out an
update to 7,000,000,000
phones at once, and you could opt in
to contact tracing unless you lived in Massachusetts
where I don't know if you heard about
this story, but, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
with Google, they just deployed and they enabled
the contact tracing app,
for millions of people in the state. And,
you know, they're being they're being sued for
it. But they have a they that that's
what you would classify as a backdoor. Someone
installing an app on your phone without your
consent, turning Bluetooth on, and then seeing how
close you are to people. So people don't
have as much control of their phones and
these big tech software services that are responsible
for things like Google Pay, Apple Pay, contact
tracing.
Eventually, why wouldn't it be iris scanning? Right.
Why wouldn't it be all the safety stuff
that we're seeing in things like the UN
Digital Compact? The the humble, the, the obedient
servants to carry
all this out. And it's going to be
deployed on your phone at one time. So
if you really wanna divest yourself, you need
to detoxify your phone and and either use
a better phone or maybe ditch technology altogether,
which is totally an option. But we wanna
give you the best of both worlds, a
phone that works, a laptop that works, does
everything you need it to while being completely
detached
from this, corrupt yeah. From this corrupt infrastructure.
Yeah. Absolutely, man. I mean, I think, like,
I I don't know. I know people that
are barely paying attention to this stuff that
feel exactly the same way. You know, like,
it's just it's it is everywhere right now,
so it's nice to see that somebody is
truly trying to provide solutions to people that
seem to all want the same thing, but
your governments and corporations are all screaming that
you have to go a different direction. So
I appreciate what you're doing, man. And I
I'm I'm hoping to give you guys some
updates in the near future about what we
were talking about, and I I really,
really genuinely need to make these steps. And
so thank you for, you know, pushing me
a little further. I need to do that.
Well, anything else you wanna leave us with
on the way out?
Yeah. So so yeah. Well, first of all,
thank you for having me, and thanks for
for giving giving us a voice here. We
really I mean, this is why we do
it. We wanna help protect our content creators.
And I know sometimes you're in the flow,
so it doesn't it takes a little bit
more time with y'all. We totally understand it.
With with everyone at home, even if you're
feeling a little bit of hesitation or, anticipation
about the journey, we're gonna make it as
easy as possible for you. We've got the
best support in the game. I mean, the
education is a one major pillar to our
organization. So whether you're getting a book, whether
you're getting a phone, you're gonna get to
be on a very live, like, a live
video conference with a support engineer, and we're
gonna help you move all of your data,
all of your apps to your new device
and teach you how to use it, which
is unheard of. Right? Try and get AT
and T on a phone call. Try and
get Apple on a phone call. Right. And
you're not gonna get anywhere. So this is
community led support. It's and we're working with
people in the movement too. Nice. And that's
what it's gonna take, just all of us
fanning together. So I hope to be able
to support you. I I hope to be
able to support TLab
too, and I would love to chat with
you about maybe getting a special discount code
for your community.
And, yeah, let's do the thing. Absolutely, man.
Yep. Well, awesome. I've enjoyed the conversation, brother.
And, you know, as as always, everybody out
there, question everything. Come to your own conclusions.
Stay vigilant.