Saying Goodbye

On September 7, 2017 the public was finally informed that more than 143 million Americans had their names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver's license numbers exposed. After talking with friends, family, and fellow Internet patrons... it turned out that most people just weren't sure where to start when it came to safeguarding themselves.

I set out to build a conversational assistant that could help people stay on top of their identity and lend a helping hand by offering suggestions on how they could handle the Equifax breach. Beyond helping people become more aware of how serious the breach was and what steps they could take to help reduce their risk, BreachBot was designed to offer a handful of helpful tips and suggestions for online security with his Security Checkup functionality.

Over the course of 2018, BreachBot gained quite a few new features. Most notably, the ability to text with BreachBot outside of the Facebook Platform came out of Beta and into production in February of 2018. In March, BreachBot recieved an overhaul of his Security Checkup 🛡️ functionality. April was a big month for BreachBot, support was added for the My Fitness Pal 💪 breach and a wealth of information reguarding what happened between Facebook 👤 and Cambridge Analytica 🧠, and information on how Facebook Messenger 💬 didn't really give a shit about your privacy. This is also when broadcasts and alerts 🚨 rolled out, letting us instantly notify users when a new breach happened. In May, support was added for Twitter 🐦 and their little opsie and continued rollouts for new Security Checkup 🛡️ content.

Here's the important part though, BreachBot helped more than 28,000 people take steps to reduce their risk from the Equifax Breach and with their online security as a whole. You read that right, 28,000. That's something that I am extremely proud of. The big digital world of today is a scary place and hope that BreachBot or some future form of BreachBot can exist. For the time being, I no longer have the time or budget to continue maintaining BreachBot. Rather than have an outdated version of BreachBot out in the world that could potentially be giving users irrelevant or outdated information, it's time to say goodbye.

Thank you all for your support over the last few years and for giving me the opportunity to feel like I was able to add a little good to this crazy world we live in.

Sincerely
Seth