Meet Lance Seidman, a self-taught programmer and electronics engineer living in Las Vegas.
“I originally got into hi-end technology with re-programming the Microsoft Speech SDK for my brother who is Autistic,” said Lance Seidman.
He explains that at the time he was learning about re-programming the Microsoft Speech SDK, his brother wasn’t as high functioning as he is now. He felt computers would expand his brother’s mind, but something stood in the way. Using a mouse and keyboard was impossible.
“Microsoft had the Speech SDK and he couldn’t sit to train his voice. This was a thing in early Windows,” he explains. “My add-on was to understand people without having to train a voice, just speak and it recognized words but more importantly, the half words, mumbles. It wasn’t perfect, but good enough.”
Years later, Lance Seidman explains that we don’t train our voice anymore. But in the early days of developing his technology, he says large companies had interest in the projected he started at age 14.
“Ever since, I have been on a mini mission to help wherever it was needed,” he explains. In fact, he says his brother has come a long way since then, and now works at Opportunity Village. Opportunity Village is a not-for-profit organization that serves people in the Southern Nevada community with intellectual disabilities, to enhance their lives and the lives of the families who love them.
Today, Lance Seidman is working on a new project. His project, called VSTheWeb, is designed to help those who need to reach the outside world when unfair practices prevent fair speech. He is trying to solve a big problem — the ability to share about possible protests without being targeted and even in some cases, killed or brutally treated.
“VsTheWeb.com recently has been designed to help those in Turkey who are being gaged by the government,” he explains. “They’re obviously blocking DNS’s, which I now show how to encrypt your DNS to bypass using the Namecoin Blockchain so things like SSL aren’t hijacked but also to access websites that aren’t public or blocked. However this isn’t foolproof. Now, I am bypassing the possible future filtering or preventive of non-DHCP DNS’s provided by the Turkey ISP. I’m offering encrypted Messaging P2P using the Jabber Protocol. With these encrypted messages, they can’t be recovered, they’re not stored, no cache is enabled and PUSHED using HTML/jQuery and parts of NodeJS to ensure only those on the page at that moment in time can see it.”
Lance Seidman also sees a need for a wall for those to speak out publicly in hopes the message is addressed. He envisions activists, citizens, and everyday people being able to connect with influencers like journalists on this wall.
“The good news is, this isn’t for Turkey only. Eventually it can be cleaned up for even companies to have conversations without fancy apps, downloads, etc.,” he says. “Using just your Browser, real time conversations that are never logged or even possibly decrypted if someone is sniffing packets is an asset that will be realized sooner than later.”
Lance Seidman is clearly one of #VegasTech’s high tech all-stars and is very knowledgeable. What keeps him in Las Vegas?
“I’m in Vegas still only really because I see something special, something I am going to see go from an area that was literally on the way to being condemned to being my favorite hangout — downtown Las Vegas,” he said. “Not to toot my own horn but I have had offers to join startups or have a cushy Fortune 500 job. If you knew me, the work is more important than the fruit of the labor.”
