--- begin forwarded text
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 14:11:27 -0700
From: Somebody
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Absolut Snake Oil
A start-up is set to release a novel messaging service that lets people
send heavily encrypted email directly to each other, a development
that could be a boon for privacy advocates but a headache for law
enforcement authorities.
AbsoluteFuture.com of Bellvue, Wash., has dubbed its service
"SafeMessage," describing it as a "direct messaging" service that
transmits
messages from party to party without the use of a central server.
To use SafeMessage, a person signs on to the program with an ID and
password, similarly to an email client. When typing the recipient,
the person
sends the contact to AbsoluteFuture's server, which locates the
recipient
online and allows the sender to send the message directly to the
recipient.
The message is encrypted before it leaves the sender's computer, and
the
decoder key is destroyed. If the recipient is not online, the sender
must send
the message to AbsoluteFuture's server, which will hold the message
until the
recipient logs on or the message times out.
Meta Group analyst David Thompson calls the market for peer-to-peer or
encrypted messaging nascent. "People are just starting to realize that
this
kind of thing is even possible," he said.
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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'
