Zero Knowledge, after poor software sales, tries new gambit

[Declan McCullagh]

Also see ZKS press release:
http://www.zeroknowledge.com/media/pressrel.asp?rel=10312000



http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39895,00.html

Privacy Firm Tries New Gambit
by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
2:00 a.m. Nov. 1, 2000 PST

WASHINGTON -- Zero Knowledge Systems seems to have finally realized a
harsh truth: Internet users don't like to pay extra to protect their
privacy.

The Montreal-based firm won acclaim for its sophisticated
identity-cloaking techniques, but very few people appear to have paid
the $49.95 a year to shield their online activities from prying eyes.

That's not exactly a heartening prospect for a company with 250
employees to pay and $37 million in venture capital funds to justify
-- especially when already high-strung investors have become nervous
about Internet companies that have never made a profit.

Zero Knowledge's solution: A kind of privacy consulting service it
announced on Tuesday. Through it, the company hopes to capitalize on
the growing privacy concerns of both consumers and businesses -- and,
most importantly, finally enjoy some revenues.

"This is a new focus for Zero Knowledge: helping businesses build in
privacy technologies in how they deal with customer data flow," Austin
Hill, co-founder and chief executive, said in a telephone interview.

"As customer expectations have increased with privacy, and how
governments have started to regulate some privacy standards ... all of
a sudden, companies are having to think, 'Hold on, how do I build in
privacy?'" Hill said.

Hill and his staff of technologists -- including veterans like
cryptologists Stefan Brands and Ian Goldberg -- aren't alone in eyeing
the privacy-consulting business as a lucrative one.

Many of the established consulting businesses such as
PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst and Young offer privacy services. IBM
launched such a business in 1998, and an Andersen Consulting
representative says that privacy awareness is "a component of almost
anything we do."

[...]

Internet voting attack test

[Ed Gerck]

The purpose of the information released in this page is to help hackers and security 
specialists attack the Internet Shadow Election test in Contra Costa County. This test 
is an official
test of Internet voting contracted with the state of California.

http://www.safevote.com/tech.htm

Cheers,

Ed Gerck

Globeset sat on...

[R. A. Hettinga]

"Virtual Visa", is, of course, the protocol formerly known as SET...

Cheers,
RAH

--- begin forwarded text


From: Somebody
To: "R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: FT: Globeset staff cut
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 08:21:41 -


Globeset staff cut
By James Mackintosh
Published: October 31 2000 22:22GMT | Last Updated: October 31 2000 22:27GMT



Globeset, the Texas-based supplier of internet secure purchasing software to
both the MasterCard and Visa credit card networks, has laid off almost all
its 300 staff and closed its international offices after a cash crisis.

The privately owned company is now operating on a skeleton staff and is
believed to be looking for a buyer for its technology.

Austin-based Globeset specialises in online payments and its backers - which
are believed to have provided $66.5m in venture capital - are understood to
include Deutsche Bank, American Express, Citigroup and Chase Manhattan. Oki
Electric, which distributes Globeset's products in Japan, invested $2m in
the company last month.

Jack Antonini, appointed as chairman and CEO of Globeset in July, did not
return calls on Tuesday. No one else at the company's headquarters could be
contacted.

Visa, which uses Globeset for its latest online purchasing software, said it
was not panicking. "I am not a worried man," said Jon Prideaux, executive
vice-president of Virtual Visa, the organisation's internet arm. "It doesn't
have any impact in the short term and we are looking at three options going
forward. Clearly it is an occupational hazard of working with start-ups that
some of them do not succeed."

He would not say what the options were, or whether Visa was considering an
offer to buy the technology from Globeset.

At the end of July, Mr Antonini told American Banker, a trade magazine, that
revenues had quadrupled in a year and the company was "very solid, very
strong, with a good group of investors".

However, a senior executive at a rival company said: "Globeset had good
technology but they didn't have the strength and depth of capital to expand
their business around the world from Austin."

The group's Slough, UK, office was still staffed on Tuesday but one
employee, who refused to give his name, said: "The UK office is closed. As
of the end of today we will no longer have an office in the UK." He
confirmed that almost all US staff were told on Monday they no longer had
jobs.

--- end forwarded text


-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'