Another One Bites the Dust

Siberra, my former employer, is shutting down. They already let all their technical staff go, and the plan is that they'll be shutting down completely by the end of May. I spoke to a couple of my former colleagues and it seems like all of those who are in Vancouver and interested in work are already employed. Strangely enough, Onison contacted me for employment, but they weren't interested in remote workers. Overall, it appears that the tech market in Vancouver is quite hot right now, alhamdulillah.

This is quite the opposite of the last time I worked for a company that shut down; Tristrata was started by the brilliant and accomplished John Atalla, Father of the PIN and founder of the Atalla Box. The company's website has been revived, and I imagine Dr. Atalla wants yet another feather in his cap while he still has time to breathe. However, if Dr. John ever wants his idea to take off, he's going to have to make some compromises: Tristrata got a bad technical review by Bruce Schneider and Fortune magazine featured an article titled, "When Money Goes Down the Drain" about the misadventures of the corporation. The basic idea of a centralized cryptographic server for validating things isn't that far off, but it will require a technological and marketing overhaul.