Zero-Knowledge Systems is reported to be shutting down their Freedom network and product. A letter has apparently been sent to subscribers with the bad news. Could someone please post a copy here? Does it say anything about the reasons? Just lack of money, or something related to 9/11? The web sites have not been updated and are still hyping the new version 3.0 released just a few weeks ago.
At 06:20 PM 10/4/2001 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Zero-Knowledge Systems is reported to be shutting down their Freedom network and product. A letter has apparently been sent to subscribers with the bad news. Could someone please post a copy here? Does it say anything about the reasons? Just lack of money, or something related to 9/11?
The web sites have not been updated and are still hyping the new version 3.0 released just a few weeks ago.
This message appeared on coderpunks a few days ago -
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 09:38:15 +0100 From: Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk> To: David Wagner <daw@mozart.cs.berkeley.edu> Cc: coderpunks@toad.com Subject: Re: What are the main Problems of implementing a pipe-net?
David Wagner wrote:
Are you aware of the anonymous network that ZKS (Zero Knowledge Systems) has set up? It has many of the same features as Pipenet. It does not go to quite the same extremes for anonymity in the face of extremely sophisticated attackers, but they seem to have picked a pretty darn good point in the tradeoff space. Technically, ZKS seems to be pretty strong.
They scrapped their affiliate program last week - so I guess that means bye-bye network.
Cheers,
Ben.
-- http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
... and I just got a press release from ZKS this morning trumpeting the virtues of Freedom 3.0; sounds like maybe they're abandoning the network and shifting their consumer-product focus to software alone. I looked at their website after seeing Ben's message and was struck by how much they've shifted away from selling service to consumers at $49 each, and are now targeting businesses who are allegedly concerned about their customers' alleged concern about privacy. They did appear to be willing to sell the consumer software, but it clearly wasn't the focus of their business as presented by the website. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@well.com "We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids
I used to use freedom, but i kept forgetting my passphrase..lame i know but hey. I was wondering if there are any open source projects that perform a similar function (pseudonym based ip traffic anonymising, and remailing) out there? I've had a look on google, but i can only find discussions on the theory of this sort of stuff, rather than any working implementations. Freedoms product was excellent (as far as i understood, im no security expert ;) in many ways but the real reason i dumped it was that it was just too slow on my old 400mhz pc with a 56k modem.... -Tolan -----Original Message----- From: owner-cypherpunks@ssz.com [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@ssz.com]On Behalf Of Greg Broiles Sent: 04 October 2001 17:44 To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: CDR: Re: ZKS Shutdown At 06:20 PM 10/4/2001 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Zero-Knowledge Systems is reported to be shutting down their Freedom network and product. A letter has apparently been sent to subscribers with the bad news. Could someone please post a copy here? Does it say anything about the reasons? Just lack of money, or something related to 9/11?
The web sites have not been updated and are still hyping the new version 3.0 released just a few weeks ago.
This message appeared on coderpunks a few days ago -
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 09:38:15 +0100 From: Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk> To: David Wagner <daw@mozart.cs.berkeley.edu> Cc: coderpunks@toad.com Subject: Re: What are the main Problems of implementing a pipe-net?
David Wagner wrote:
Are you aware of the anonymous network that ZKS (Zero Knowledge Systems) has set up? It has many of the same features as Pipenet. It does not go to quite the same extremes for anonymity in the face of extremely sophisticated attackers, but they seem to have picked a pretty darn good point in the tradeoff space. Technically, ZKS seems to be pretty
strong.
They scrapped their affiliate program last week - so I guess that means bye-bye network.
Cheers,
Ben.
-- http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
... and I just got a press release from ZKS this morning trumpeting the virtues of Freedom 3.0; sounds like maybe they're abandoning the network and shifting their consumer-product focus to software alone. I looked at their website after seeing Ben's message and was struck by how much they've shifted away from selling service to consumers at $49 each, and are now targeting businesses who are allegedly concerned about their customers' alleged concern about privacy. They did appear to be willing to sell the consumer software, but it clearly wasn't the focus of their business as presented by the website. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@well.com "We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids
It's on Slashdot. http://www.freedom.net/prem.html - shutdown warning http://www.freedom.net/support/article.html?article=410 - warning that with fewer servers, your anonymity is less protected from traffic analysis http://slashdot.org/articles/01/10/04/1526256.shtml - discussion At 06:20 PM 10/04/2001 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Zero-Knowledge Systems is reported to be shutting down their Freedom network and product. A letter has apparently been sent to subscribers with the bad news. Could someone please post a copy here? Does it say anything about the reasons? Just lack of money, or something related to 9/11?
The web sites have not been updated and are still hyping the new version 3.0 released just a few weeks ago.
On Thursday, October 4, 2001, at 09:57 AM, Bill Stewart wrote:
It's on Slashdot. http://www.freedom.net/prem.html - shutdown warning http://www.freedom.net/support/article.html?article=410 - warning that with fewer servers, your anonymity is less protected from traffic analysis http://slashdot.org/articles/01/10/04/1526256.shtml - discussion
I just saw Ian Goldberg's latest message on this. Here's most of it: Re:Ian Goldberg, Bruce Schneier & Whitfield Di (Score:1) by Ian Goldberg on Thursday October 04, @01:38PM (#2388977) (User #526438 Info | http://slashdot.org/) 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 corporate@zeroknowledge.com [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 prospec
At 11:50 AM 10/4/2001 -0700, you wrote:
I just saw Ian Goldberg's latest message on this. Here's most of it:
Re:Ian Goldberg, Bruce Schneier & Whitfield Di (Score:1) by Ian Goldberg on Thursday October 04, @01:38PM (#2388977) (User #526438 Info | http://slashdot.org/) 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. :-(
<snip>
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 [mailto].
Seems like the Ghost of Ecash Past claims another victim. I'm sure Bob Hettinga will soon latch on to this one as another reason why a good venture failed. I wonder if Hush is next. As discussed on this list recently there is a keen need for anonymizing (a'la Crowds) to be added to a popular P2P service. Has the Crowds source been published/leaked? steve
At 09:57 AM 10/4/2001 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
It's on Slashdot. http://www.freedom.net/prem.html - shutdown warning http://www.freedom.net/support/article.html?article=410 - warning that with fewer servers, your anonymity is less protected from traffic analysis http://slashdot.org/articles/01/10/04/1526256.shtml - discussion
Did ZKS ever release their source code? Might it be resurrected? steve
Steve Schear wrote:
At 09:57 AM 10/4/2001 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
It's on Slashdot. http://www.freedom.net/prem.html - shutdown warning http://www.freedom.net/support/article.html?article=410 - warning that with fewer servers, your anonymity is less protected from traffic analysis http://slashdot.org/articles/01/10/04/1526256.shtml - discussion
Did ZKS ever release their source code? Might it be resurrected?
steve
http://opensource.zeroknowledge.com With some kind of distributed anonymous payment mechanism/bandwidth accounting for server peers, it could work. Haven't really looked at it yet. Sure, terrorists could use it. They also use airplanes, bankers, judges, politicians, cops, etc. jbdigriz
James B. DiGriz wrote:
Steve Schear wrote:
At 09:57 AM 10/4/2001 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
It's on Slashdot. http://www.freedom.net/prem.html - shutdown warning http://www.freedom.net/support/article.html?article=410 - warning that with fewer servers, your anonymity is less protected from traffic analysis http://slashdot.org/articles/01/10/04/1526256.shtml - discussion
Did ZKS ever release their source code? Might it be resurrected?
steve
http://opensource.zeroknowledge.com
With some kind of distributed anonymous payment mechanism/bandwidth accounting for server peers, it could work. Haven't really looked at it yet.
Sure, terrorists could use it. They also use airplanes, bankers, judges, politicians, cops, etc.
jbdigriz
addendum: I left out their most useful tool, the media.
In article <5d175bdfd6756456a92c5c0941e3a137@dizum.com>, Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
Zero-Knowledge Systems is reported to be shutting down their Freedom network and product. A letter has apparently been sent to subscribers with the bad news. Could someone please post a copy here? Does it say anything about the reasons? Just lack of money, or something related to 9/11?
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 (note that this isn't the letter that was sent out; this is something new): With the release of Freedom 3.0 (http://www.zeroknowledge.com/media/pressrel.asp?rel=10042001) 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 (i.e. http://www.zeroknowledge.com/media/pressrel.asp?rel=08152001), 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 mailto: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.
At 06:44 PM 10/4/2001 +0000, Ian Goldberg wrote: <snip>
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 (i.e. http://www.zeroknowledge.com/media/pressrel.asp?rel=08152001), 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.
The shittiest part about this is the 7 day notice. (I have +/- 2.5 years worth of pseudonymous contacts, registrations, software releases, etc which I now have 7 days to figure out how to clean up :P) Based on that paragraph, it sounds like this was a decision ZKS made a long time ago. Wow, I've never been fucked as bad as this by any company I had trusted to "do the right thing". Guess that'll teach me. And of course ZKS isn't even going to be decent enough to provide the option to have nym mail forwarded to another address for an interim time. Obviously, if the business model isn't sustainable, they have to shut it down. However the way ZKS handled the shutdown and in particular their total disrespect for their (ex)customer base is absolutely unforgivable. --fade
participants (9)
-
Bill Stewart -
fade＠freedom.net -
Greg Broiles -
iang＠abraham.cs.berkeley.edu -
James B. DiGriz -
Nomen Nescio -
Steve Schear -
Tim May -
Tolan Blundell