Ask HN: We built an air-gapped document vault with encrypted print and export
11 comments
Not quite what you asked, but here are some thoughts.
Do you have the sales "fire power" to sell this solution?
Because it sounds like the kind of thing that governments or complicated companies would potentially buy. And they are not easy to sell to, to put it lightly.
I used to have some startup ideas that are in this category => "Most people don't need or want it, and people who do need or want it are not going to buy it from my flimsy bootstrapped startup (they will take 2 years and spend 100M with Deloitte on it instead)".
Not sure what's your situation/size/funding/scale but personally I'm happy to stay away from that category.
Do you have the sales "fire power" to sell this solution?
Because it sounds like the kind of thing that governments or complicated companies would potentially buy. And they are not easy to sell to, to put it lightly.
I used to have some startup ideas that are in this category => "Most people don't need or want it, and people who do need or want it are not going to buy it from my flimsy bootstrapped startup (they will take 2 years and spend 100M with Deloitte on it instead)".
Not sure what's your situation/size/funding/scale but personally I'm happy to stay away from that category.
I’m hoping to partner with an existing company.
That's not quite descriptive enough. You say you've got air gapped storage, and printers... are the printers part of the air gapped network? How is this any different than any other networked printer?
These are not networked printers. They are offline and accessible via usb only.
What's encrypted printing? How does it work?
We are working on a document vault designed for people and organizations who cannot accept cloud exposure.
The system is intentionally boring in some ways: • No required accounts • No cloud dependency for core functionality • Fully offline operation • Local encryption • Air-gapped storage • Encrypted export and controlled, encrypted printing
The printing piece is why we started this. In many environments, printing is still unavoidable, and it remains one of the largest data-leak vectors. Most privacy tools stop at storage and ignore output entirely.
This is not meant to replace cloud storage for everyone. It is for cases where the threat model assumes: • Networks are hostile • Cloud accounts will eventually be compromised • Convenience must sometimes be traded for control
We are explicitly not claiming: • “Unhackable” • “Military-grade” • “Zero risk”
We are trying to minimize attack surface and failure modes, not eliminate them.
We would genuinely value feedback on: • Threat model blind spots • Encrypted printing assumptions • Physical access risks • Update and key management strategies • What would make you immediately distrust this
If this sounds like something you would never use, that is also useful feedback.
Thanks.