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TechCybersecurity

This 11-year-old founded a cybersecurity business

By
Benjamin Snyder
Benjamin Snyder
Managing Editor
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By
Benjamin Snyder
Benjamin Snyder
Managing Editor
Down Arrow Button Icon
October 26, 2015, 5:07 PM ET
Dice Showing Seven
Close-up of a pair of dice showing the number 7, seven,. (Photo by: MyLoupe/UIG via Getty Images)Photograph by Getty Images

Mira Modi may be only 11, but she already has a cybersecurity business. The service, called DiceWare, helps provide people with secure passwords for just $2.

Modi, who lives in New York City and is in sixth grade, uses a method dubbed Diceware to come up with passwords for her clients. The method works like this: “You roll a die 5 times and write down each number,” according to her website, www.dicewarepasswords.com. “Then you look up the resulting five-digit number in the Diceware dictionary, which contains a numbered list of short words.”

She started the business because her mother, tech journalist Julia Angwin, was simply too “lazy to roll dice,” she explained on the site. “So she paid me to make [sic] roll dice and make passwords for her. Then I realized that other people wanted them, too.”

“This is my first business (other than occasional lemonade stands!),” Modi added. “But I’m very excited about it and will be very responsible.”

Ars Technica reported that she’s sold 30 passwords in her first month of business.

“This whole concept of making your own passwords and being super secure and stuff, I don’t think my friends understand that,” Modi said to Ars Technica in an interview, “but I think it’s cool.”

About the Author
By Benjamin SnyderManaging Editor
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Benjamin Snyder is Fortune's managing editor, leading operations for the newsroom.

Prior to rejoining Fortune, he was a managing editor at Business Insider and has worked as an editor for Bloomberg, LinkedIn and CNBC, covering leadership stories, sports business, careers and business news. He started his career as a breaking news reporter at Fortune in 2014.

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