About The Security Editor

The Security Editor is an independent publication about keeping personal and small-business documents safe online. It is a writing project, not a company. No one is paying for placement; no one is paid to read.

Why the pen name

Articles on this site are signed Alex Trustwell. That is an editorial pen name, not a real person. Pseudonymous bylines are a long-standing practice in journalism and technical writing — they let a writer be judged by the quality of their work rather than by who they are or who they work for during the day.

The person behind the pen name is a practicing security engineer. I do not claim credentials I do not have, and I do not write about topics I cannot back up with either primary sources or first-hand testing. If an article gets something wrong, I want to know — email alex.trustwell@proton.me.

There are a few things you should know about the setup:

• No articles are ghost-written by sponsors. There are no sponsors.
• No articles are generated and published without an editor (me) reading every line.
• When an article draws on AI-assisted research or drafting, the final text is still edited and fact-checked by a human.
• When a claim is technical, the article cites a primary source (usually NIST, CISA, EFF, or vendor documentation) so you can verify it yourself.

Editorial policy

No ads. No affiliate links. No tracking analytics. This is a text site. It does not have a business model because it does not need one. Product mentions — password managers, backup tools, cloud providers — are editorial choices made after use or after reading primary documentation. If you believe a mention is wrong, write in.

Corrections. When an article turns out to be wrong, the correction is dated and noted on the article. When an article is updated because the world changed (a vendor released a new feature; NIST published new guidance), the article shows the updated date at the top.

Sourcing. Every article that makes a non-obvious technical claim lists its sources at the bottom. Links to those sources use rel="nofollow" as a courtesy — this site is not in the business of redistributing link juice.

Licensing

Unless an article notes otherwise, the text of articles on this site is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license. Reuse is welcome for non-commercial purposes with attribution.

Who this is for

Two audiences, in roughly equal measure:

• People who are not in technology. You want your tax returns, medical records, and family photos to stay yours. The top third of every article is written for you.
• People who work in or adjacent to security. You want depth, threat-model rigor, and primary sources. The rest of every article is written for you.

What this site is not

• Not a vendor directory or ranking site.
• Not a "top 10 VPNs of 2026" SEO farm.
• Not legal, medical, or financial advice. Compliance articles describe how rules work in plain English; they do not replace a lawyer.