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.

Re:In true .com fashion

[VulgarBoatman]

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

SAFEWEB is still there.

[bodin]

http://www.safeweb.com/ [safeweb.com] is still there.

Hushmail...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but I see that hushmail is still in operation.

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?

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

Re:check the math dude....

[Red Aardvark House]

Yes, according to the article all services shut down by Oct. 22nd.

Incoming e-mail servies shut down Oct. 11th as a result of most of their servers being taken offline. So you have 7 days to notify people you're changing your e-mail address.

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 [idzap.com]

Well, at least there are *options*

[Majik]

For those of you left out in the cold by this, Hushmail [hushmail.com] provides secure e-mail at a reasonable fee (I forget what I paid) or free accounts. Although if today's message is anything, supporting privacy services with money should be considered if you're going to use the service often!

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.

Re:Easy, no billing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true. It was also very difficult to link an anonymous identity a purchase. You purchased a serial number, then you exchanged the serial number for "tokens", which you could then exchange for identities. Since nothing forced you to get tokens right away, ZKS couldn't correlate your purchase to your anonymous identities (the exchange of tokens for nyms was anonymized).

What a gyp!

[p0nderous]

So I started beta-testing Freedom a while back... probably August or Sept. of 1999. I purchased the product in Dec. of 99 as soon as it was available. Hell, I was one of the first 100 to buy it since I got my free stinking t-shirt. The way they described licensing back then was "you can either use five nyms for one year, one nym for five years, or any combination in between." At this point, I have not yet used all of my nyms, meaning I have not fully used the product, meaning I should get a refund. Especially because I helped beta test and submitted bug reports left and right. But no! I don't fall within the "on or before Jan. 1, 2001" time frame, so I'm SOL. Perfect example of a good company gone bad. I wonder if Ian Goldberg is going to jump ship now that their product does Zer0 Cryptography.

Oh well. Another fantastic product down the drain. Nice job, upper management! That's what happens when you let guys from the stone age manage a cool new company with something real to offer.

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 [zeroknowledge.com] 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 [zeroknowledge.com], 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 [e-mail] [mailto].

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.

Freedom Network Replacement?

[cyberops0]

I think it's safe to say that we are all saddened by the recently announced shutdown of the Freedom Network.

I signed up for Zero Knowledge Systems' premium services not too long ago, that is, when I was moving into a university where I am connected on a non-switched network that is extremely easy to sniff traffic off of. I found freedom to be very useful.

I was about to set up another node on the Freedom Network as well. At this very moment I have a server setting in a data center, idling. Now I am hit with this news.

I will be brief. I am interested in setting up a secure SOCKS proxy server, and want to know how many people would pay for this kind of a service. It would be different than the Freedom Network, in that its main focus would be on privacy instead of anonymity. Of course your connection would be pseudo-anonymous, but not subpoena resistant like freedom was. However it would support any program which supports SOCKS proxies, for example AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, file sharing programs, etc, in addition to regular web browsing. It would use either IPSec or some other strong cryptography to secure all traffic between the client and the proxy.

There would have to be some kind of bandwidth based billing system, however, for example either a bandwidth cap or a cost based on the amount of bandwidth used. I am not in this to make tons of money, but then again I couldn't afford the bandwidth if users paying $10/month are downloading numerous movies and MP3s through the proxy.

Please email me at [e-mail] [mailto] to express any interest or provide any ideas or suggestions.

Thank you,
Adam Smith

List of alternatives

[lmd]

Alternatives to Zero Knowledge include

Anonymizer [anonymizer.com],
Rewebber [rewebber.com],
Siegesoft [siegesoft.com], and
Orangatango [orangatango.com].

Re:Ian Goldberg, Bruce Schneier & Whitfield Di

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised that FN died either, but probably not for the same reasons. I sent in $50 because I wanted to send Zero Knowledge a vote of confidence. However, I was sorely disappointed in their product itself, and it is my belief that their product design was a contributing factor in ZKS's woes.

I could not recommend the Freedom application to any of my friends because it wasn't good software. Freedom attempted to intercept every outbound connection, which meant that it would also have to know about more protocols - and do all the right stuff with them - than it would ever be able to. They got mired in the expensive development of an overly complex networking application for Windows sockets, which can be expensive indeed. That was too bad, because their business model didn't actually require it.

What people want is anonymized HTTP, SMTP, and POP. What they got with Freedom included an attempt to anonymize things like SSH, but broke it. They also got periodic notices that their current version was inoperable and that they had to download a new one. Their downloads were not authenticated. Overall, I just wasn't that impressed with their product, and went on to buy anonymity elsewhere.