ZeroKnowledge to Discontinue Anonymity Service

VulgarBoatman writes: "ZeroKnowledge, providers of Freedom.net and Freedom privacy software, have abruptly decided to stop providing anonymous web browsing and private, encrypted, untraceable email for its customers. They give users 7 days before the system is shut down and all untraceable email addresses are disabled. They also say that your "secret" identity may not remain a secret for long." Well, note that that last link is a warning about using the service during the shutdown period, not a warning that they plan to compromise nyms in general. At least they're offering a refund. Update: 10/04 19:00 GMT by M : ZKS has a statement in the comments below.

Comments

Re:In true .com fashion

[VulgarBoatman]

Nope. $59.95 for 5 identities - each good for a maximum of 1 year.

History repeats itself

[CaptainAlbert]

Remember anon.penet.fi?

This is even more depressing, because this time the company running the service has pre-empted the government pressure to shut down, and gone ahead and done it before the lawyers arrive.

Eek. DOes anyone else get the feeling that the terrorists might actually be winning?

Re:History repeats itself

[ktakki]

What happened to them anyway? One minute addresses from that domain seemed to be everywhere (whether you wanted to see them or not) and the next minute poof.

Collateral damage from the $cientologists' war against the Internet (circa '95 or '96).

The Co$ got Finnish authorities to subpoena anon.penet.fi's records. The operator, Julf Helsingius [sic?] closed up shop, saying he couldn't guarantee the anonymity of his users anymore.

There's probably something about it in WiReD's archives.

k.

Looks like more of a business model switch

[Lawmeister]

"Zero-Knowledge is introducing Freedom Privacy & Security Tools 3.0, the next generation of its online security software for consumers. This new software includes a personal firewall, form filler/password manager, ad manager, cookie manager and keyword alert. As a result, we have decided to focus our main development efforts on this product as well as other software solutions providing online security.

As such, I regret to inform you that Freedom Premium Services - Anonymous Web Browsing and Private Encrypted Email - will be discontinued as of October 22nd, 2001. Please refer to the detailed Freedom Network shutdown timetable below"

So basically they are winding down their subscription based business model, leasing nyms (4 minimum as far as I recall) on an annual basis and going with a shrink wrap product.

I'm holding my breath to see what the reviewers have to say about this Tool kit v3.0 - it may provide what most users are looking for.

Re:This is an opportunity

[malkavian]

Secondly, the closing of another anonymity service will make it harder for terrorists to operate on the internet.

But, as just about all the security agencies with a clue keep admitting, terrorists don't use the internet because it's just too insecure.
So closing down all the privacy sites does nothing to hinder the Bad Guys(TM), it just bugs the ordinary guy.

Malk

Easy, no billing

[Anonymous Coward]

No collections department, you paid in advance for a year's service. If you wanted to ensure anonymity, you could sign up online, get an account number, and write that on an money order. You could also pay by credit card - they claimed to have an internal system to remove the linkage between the payment and the account.

Re:Alternatives?

[matrix0040]

as ppl have pointed out .. one is safeweb.com another alternative is idzap.com

Re:Ian Goldberg, Bruce Schneier & Whitfield Di

[Ian Goldberg]

Believe me, no one is more disappointed about this than I am, but right now there simply isn't enough market buy-in on the premium services to justify the network's operating costs. :-(

As a business, we are focusing on the product that customers and partners want. Here's an official Zero-Knowledge Systems statement on the matter:

With the release of Freedom 3.0 and the discontinuation of the Freedom Network (our anonymous browsing and encrypted pseudonym service) there have been a number of questions for more details about the decision to stop offering the Freedom Network services. Hopefully this will help clarify things.

When we released Freedom 1.0 close to 2 years ago we saw a significant percentage of our users subscribe to the premium Freedom Network services. This was anticipated as our early adopters were very privacy and technology aware and had expressed strong interest in the Freedom Network offering.

As we began to increase the distribution of Freedom into the mass market with the release of Freedom 2.0 & 2.2, we saw a disproportionately high percentage of users who subscribed to the standard features (and not Freedom Network services). The initial interest in the premium (FN) services amongst our early adopters simply didn't carry over to the mainstream and as our user numbers grew, we began to realize that the market was looking for the kind of features we are now offering in Freedom 3.0.

As we began our feature triage for Freedom 3.0 (almost 9 months ago) we heard from customers and focus groups of users, as well as channel partners, and reflected on the statistics from our existing user base, and decided that there was not enough mass market demand for the premium services to justify continuing the service.

This was entirely a market related decision. The market demand for consumer Internet security and safety tools has grown considerably in the 4 years our company has been in business. Freedom 3.0 is a strong competitor to security offerings from companies such as Symantec and McAfee and we have gotten very positive market support and a warm reception from channel partners to this new version of our suite of privacy and security tools.

There has been speculation that this decision was somehow related to government pressure or was made in the wake of the tragedies of September 11. This is simply untrue. For the past 3 months we have been beta-testing this version with partners, getting certification from Microsoft for our drivers and completing our Alpha and Beta cycles with our beta users. Support for the Freedom network offering was removed from the client code base well before the recent tragedies of September 11.

Our research team is continuing work in the area of privacy enhanced network protocols, and we are open to any suggestions the research community offers on how we can leverage the work that went into the Freedom Network design and operation to advance this area of computer science. If you have suggestions or interest in this, please contact us at corporate@zeroknowledge.com.

Zero-Knowledge continues to offer our consumer protection utility Freedom 3.0 and we are very excited by the prospects for this product. We also have a division that is addressing the market need of enterprise privacy technologies that stem from managing consumer data that require strong security and policy frameworks to adhere to privacy regulations and customer preference management (Healthcare; Financial and other consumer data that is subject to new security, privacy restrictions relating to legislation like HIPAA, GLB, PIPEDA, EU privacy directive).

Our company continues to evolve and focus our efforts on market needs and customer demands and we remain very confident of our prospects in these markets.