Tom Regan
'Freedom' software promises complete privacy and anonymity on the Internet
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The Canadian software company says that its program, called Freedom, allows users to create fictious 'identities' to use when sending e-mail, visiting Web sites and chating in newsgroups. Freedom does this by rerouting your e-mail and Web browsing through its servers, or the nearest ISP that uses its server software. By using a randomly generated code to create these fictious identities (which Freedom calls, nyms), even Zero Knowledge has no way to connect a user's fictious identity with the real person.
While privacy advocates may like this idea, there are many others -- particularly those in law enforcement -- who probably won't. After all, this kind of software can be used to send abusive or libelious messages, transfer pirated programs, etc.
Zero Knowledge does take the step of telling people in its licensing agreement not to do all these bad things -- but that's like me telling my four-year old son not to tease his younger sister. As noted above, the Freedom program prevents Zero Knowledge from helping police or others find these 'violators' -- but the company can block the user's e-mail accounts (and the offending nym identity) -- basically knocking them off the system.
The beauty of the system, however, and the reason that the likelihood of abusive use is minimal, is that users must pay to use Freedom.
The pricing model is a subscription one rather than a straight-buy. The cost of Freedom is $49.95 US to use five nyms for 365 days, or you can use one nym for five years (basically, each nym costs ten dollars a year). In order to continue to use Freedom, you'll have to renew your 'license' -- although Zero Knowledge will never know which fictious identity is yours.
Zero-Knowledge was created by Austin Hill in 1997 -- but it's people like Ian Goldberg, a former University of California researcher who specialized in cracking security codes, that make the company one to watch.
Unfortunately, if you're behind a firewall, you might find it difficult to use Freedom. I downloaded the trial version of the Freedom software yesterday (good for 30 days), but wasn't able to complete the set-up process because my machine couldn't seem to connect to freedom.net to download the information necessary to create a nym.
A quick call to Montreal confirmed that this indeed was the case. The www.freedom.net site was also incredibly slow Tueday but a spokesman said it's because the site is just being hammered by people who want to try or buy the software, and the company is adding new Web servers as I write this. So be patient if you're trying to visit.
Also, the company is only allowing 10,000 people to sign-up per week for the first ten weeks to insure they can handle the demand on their servers, and those of their affliates.
Personally, I find Freedom very interesting, particularly for Web browsing. The idea that one can browse the Web and not leave footprints is very enticing. And while law enforcement officials are justifiably concerned about illegal e-mail use, it can also be argued that something like Freedom will be a blessing for dissidents in totalitarian countries and corporate or political whistle-blowers.
We'll have an interview with Zero-Knolwedge president Austin Hill later this week, and it will be interesting to see how he views these issues.
Animal rights extremists threaten cyber attacks
I received the following message from 'I-Alert,' an e-mail service that tracks cracker or terrorist activity online:
"The Tactical Internet Response Network (TIRN) of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) has threatened to carry out cyber actions against those companies that it views as being violators of animal rights. The TIRN has threatened to 'damage animal abusers on the Internet in any way possible.'
"The threatened attacks include "virtual sit-ins," hacking into Web sites, planting computer viruses, and denial of service attacks. The group has also publicly announced that its next "virtual sit-in" action would be against the Seattle Fur Exchange on February 23, 2000. This denial of service attack is to be carried out using the javascript FloodNet tool.
"The ALF's TIRN and other extremists of their ilk pose a serious physical and cyber threat to corporations and organizations that they deem to be animal rights violators. These groups are now actively recruiting at hacker conventions and gatherings in order to develop more sophisticated cyber attack techniques. Law enforcement officials in the US and Canada are taking the threat seriously and are monitoring these groups. Companies need to be aware that extremists are actively using the Internet to carry out cyber attacks."
I called the Seattle Fur Exchange and spoke to IT manager Scott Wolfe. While he hadn't heard that his company had been targeted by the ALF for a virtual sit-in, he seemed unconcerned, calling the ALF attempts at cracking his site a "joke."
"They used the same program last year (FloodNet) and it was completely ineffective," he said. He added that the company had taken some exploitable code off its Web site, and beefed up its security. "It's funny that they would target the Web site, because it's really only information-related," said Wolfe. "We don't do any e-commerce on the site, for instance."