Message Level Assembles Advisory Board of Internet Security Visionaries

--- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 23:02:56 -0500 To: Philodox Clips List From: "R. A. Hettinga" Subject: Message Level Assembles Advisory Board of Internet Security Visionaries http://www.emediawire.com/printer.php?prid=344596 eMediaWire Message Level Assembles Advisory Board of Internet Security Visionaries - Choice They See: Sender-Based Email Validation or 'Game Theory Escalations' Message Level, Inc. announced today the formation of a technical advisory board, drafting three of the Internet's most recognized authorities in network risk management, secure network operations and network performance, a trio joined by their recognition that sender-based email authentication is an inevitable security design that maps fully to traditional business process protocols. Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) February 9, 2006 -- Message Level, Inc. announced today the formation of a technical advisory board, drafting three of the Internet's most recognized authorities in network risk management, secure network operations and network performance, a trio joined by their recognition that sender-based email authentication is an inevitable security design that maps fully to traditional business process protocols. Joining the company's technical advisory board are Mr. Bob Anita, Dr. Dan Geer and Mr. John Quarterman. Bob Antia is CTO of KSR, a managed security services provider; former VP of Information Technologies and Risk at Guardent; former Chief Security Officer's principal at Verisign; and board member of JP Morgan's Council of Communications Advisors and the FCC's National Infrastructure Reliability Council FG1B Committee on Cyber Security. Mr. Antia has also served as Chief Technical Architect for Exodus Communications and Director of Operations Technology for Cable and Wireless America. Dr. Daniel E. Geer, Jr., Sc.D., counts among his professional milestones: The X Window System and Kerberos (1988), the first information security consulting firm on Wall Street (1992), convenor of the first academic conference on mobile computing (1993), convenor of the first academic conference on electronic commerce (1995), the "Risk Management is Where the Money Is" speech that changed the focus of security (1998), the Presidency of USENIX Association (2000++), the first call for the eclipse of authentication by accountability (2002), principal author of and spokesman for "Cyberinsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly" (2003), and co-founder of SecurityMetrics.Org (2004). John Quarterman is CEO of InternetPerils, Inc., which provides quantification and visualization products to help financial institutions, banks, telecommunications providers, government, insurers, and enterprises manage their Internet business risks. His network engineering experience began in 1978 on the ARPANET project, the origin of the contemporary Internet, and he has been delineating internetwork performance since the early 1990s. His newest book, about Risk Management Solutions, has just appeared from Wiley. Twice elected to the board of USENIX, he helped orchestrate the funding of UUNET in 1991, one of the world's first two commercial ISPs. Frequent conference speaker, technical trainer, and writer, Mr. Quarterman retains an appointment as an Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) research fellow, building aids for visualizing phish server networks. Message Level CTO and founder Brian Cunningham said of the advisory board additions, "We are proud to provide the definitive email authentication solution at a time when this vital communications medium is so imperiled by criminal activity such as phishing and abusive messaging such as spam. We are prouder still to be joined in our enterprise by these senior statesmen of the information security arts." Messrs. Antia, Geer and Quarterman will be advising Message Level on product development and hardening, desktop integration, enterprise deployment, MTA integration and augmentation of Message Level technology for commercial-grade email. As well, the new advisors will be guiding the company in establishment of alliances and partnerships essential for the proliferation of message-level authentication as the preferred mechanism for substantiation of an email message's origin. Message Level CEO Mike McGowan said, "Email as we know it has reached a crossroads in which its credibility is at stake. Solutions proposed thus far have been ineffective, crushed by high cost and complexity and their vulnerability to attacks. Message Level, based on a protocol of irreducible elegance, is a technology whose moment has come. We are grateful that our new advisors, men whose provenances date to the very genesis of the Internet, have recognized the power and effectiveness of the Message Level solution." Message Level, with offices in Bethesda, Maryland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been developing its email authentication technologies since 2003 and holds an intellectual property estate dating back to 2003. Message Level technology creates query-able unique identifiers that are returned to the sender or his agents for confirmation before delivery, placing definitive authentication with the sender, a scheme that is both secure and places delivery liability in the sender's hands. Mr. Antia said of the company's authentication system, "The Message Level solution answers the simple question that all email users - enterprises and individuals - are forced to ask: did the sender of the email I am reading actually send this email? What's more, for enterprises that need to audit their communications, it conclusively satisfies the requirement of certifying delivery - and can do so without reliance on a third party. Message Level satisfies both these business processes without complexity for either the sender or receiver. I think the choice is simple. You can either deploy Message Level or enter into game theory escalations with the spammers, phishers and pharmers." Surveying the larger technology conflict that has arisen from the search for a definitive email authentication solution, Dr. Geer said, "Email is the killer app of the Internet in more ways than one. As much as it pains me to admit it, the current models have got to go but before we end up with something authoritarian or worse, let's try to do the right thing: Sender credentials that can be checked by those who want to check but which don't require massive infrastructures that no will ever build. Trust me on this, in e-mail authentication the best has been the enemy of the good for way too long." Speaking to ecommerce enablement engendered by the company's sender-based authentication scheme, Mr. Quarterman said, "Message Level's solution goes beyond recipient-acknowledgement schemes; it enables the receiver to ask the sender whether it sent a specific message. Miscreants who could evade a blacklist or pretend to be on a whitelist by using a different IP address or domain name have a much harder time with this scheme, since it depends on authentication deeper than network node identifiers. Message Level's authentication is strong enough to enable assigning liability to a specific party who sent or received or lost an invoice, and that could catalyze increased electronic commerce on the Internet, even beyond addressing the phishing problem." Message Level Media Contacts: Mike McGowan (703) 981-4718 Brian Cunningham (617) 721-2459 www.messagelevel.com # # # Contact Information Bill McInnis Message Level http://www.messagelevel.com 804-355-5560 ) Copyright, PR Web. All Rights Reserved -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga 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' --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga 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'