To All - 3COM - Palm Pilot Following is an article about Jaws that gives a good basic background of the company and also talks about 3COM. For those of you who have been following the thread for the last month, you know that I've been saying that Jaws has been "tweaking" their software so that it can run on one of the Personal Digital Assistants (PDA). Well, my bet is that it's 3COM's Palm Pilot, who I believe is the market leader with around 3 Million units sold. If 3COM deems Jaws to be compatible, then 3COM users will be able to download Jaws from a 3COM or Jaws website. But ultimately, I think the way to go would be to have Jaws built into the firmware.
Here's the article.
Silicon Valley
North
News For Canada's High Tech Communities
Vol. 3 No. 11 Aug 98
Upstart company offers $5 million to whoever can crack the code
Security is one of the biggest issues of the computer age, when hackers around the world are engaged in stealing information, sometimes just for kicks, and other times for more nefarious schemes such as international industrial espionage.
One of the catch words for security issues is encryption, and the deeper a file can be encrypted, the safer it is. Calgary's Jaws Technologies has introduced its new security platform Jaws L5 Data Encryption, and with its roll out, has also announced a contest, to see if anyone can crack the code. With a grand prize of $5 million, the contest is open to any individual or technical team that can crack the code. Should that happen, the winner will be paid $250,000 per year for 20 years. The contest began May 28.
But the company is positive the code will not be opened.
"Our code is statistically unbreakable," says lead programmer and L5 creator Jim Morrison. He says there is still the possibility of a random chance crack by a tech team, but Jaws has protected itself from that. To win the contest, the programmer will have to crack a second code, so if it is not a viable solution, the code will remain statistically unbreakable. "There's always a chance someone will get lucky and hit the right keys randomly," he says. "We call that 'banging your head on the keyboard.'"
This is also an excellent means of testing the software without having to hire a team of programmers. "$5 million will bring out your more serious programmers," smiles Morrison.
The security program encodes data with a 4096 bit data encryption model, which is a large enough number of combinations per character to create a daunting number of key possibilities.
But the strength is needed. Morrison explains that current 128 bit encryption algorithms are close to being cracked, and 56 bit codes have already been broken-repeatedly.
"The 56 bit codes were broken by a series of computers across the Net," says CEO Robert Kubbernus. "Two thousand computers did it in 40 days by working in the background on other computers. Distributed computing broke it."
Because of this, Jaws has taken the position that 128 bit security isn't 'near enough for our industry.'
The company was formed earlier this year. It was called E-Biz Solutions until Apr. In Feb., the company changed its name to Jaws Technologies, and went public on the NASDAQ exchange. Jaws has also completed two financing placements for a total of US$800,000.
Despite being so new, the company can trace its roots back to Morrison's early days as a child prodigy programmer. The L5 encryption software is something he once used to protect his own files, which he started developing at age seven.
Kubbernus became involved when Morrison formed a company and was looking for vencap financing to get started. "One and a half years ago Jim needed debt financing," recalls Kubbernus. "I had a look and realized it didn't fit into institutional financing models, so I looked at it as a vencap opportunity."
After doing his homework, Kubbernus became involved both financially and personally by joining the company as CEO.
Kubbernus and Morrison have faith that their company will succeed, based on the results of the open computing trend, and the need for tight security to prevent information theft. "This has been the result of open computing," says Kubbernus. "Everybody is connected and interconnected now."
He explains the trend in a 'cause and effect' pattern. Billions of dollars have been spent creating the connected society and business world, so 'it won't disappear.'
In the name of protecting what has been built, Jaws will continue to build security programs, each with higher levels of encryption.
That isn't all the company will be doing. The market potential for security products is large. "We could walk up and down the street all day pointing out products that can use security," says Kubbernus.
One of these products is 3-Com's Palm Pilot, which is capable of exchanging information via infrared transfer. This creates a whole new issue.
Morrison says someone could steal everything in a person's Palm Pilot without that person's knowledge.
"This is not an industry that's going to come and go," says Kubbernus. "Too much money has been spent building up open computing. Security will always be needed."
AARON EVANS
aevans@silvan.com |
