The Doghouse: IQ Networks (Re: CRYPTO-GRAM, May 15, 2004)

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 3:46 AM -0500 5/15/04, Bruce Schneier wrote:
>            The Doghouse:  IQ Networks
>
>
>
>In general, the Doghouse is a showcase for stupid security companies or
>products.  Snake-oil cryptography, nonsense computer security, that
>sort of thing.  But this month we have something different: a company
>committing out-and-out fraud.
>
>IQ Networks claims to have an impressive advisory board: Ross Anderson,
>Mihir Bellare, Steve Bellovin, Shafi Goldwasser, Peter Gutmann, Doug
>Stinson, Ron Rivest, and Markus Kuhn.  Unfortunately, none of these
>people had ever heard of the company.  Nor did they agree to have
>content of theirs on the site.  They also claim to be involved with the
>Honeynet Project -- none of the Honeynet guys had ever heard of them --
>and Password Safe: I've never heard of them, either.
>
>They have an impressive customer list.  I'll bet anything that all of
>them are fabrications, too.  Oh; they're under investigation by SANS
>for pirating SANS training material.
>
>The rest of the site is also amusing, with a lot of generic security
>gobbledygook and not a whole lot of information.  The company claims to
>do pretty much anything.
>
>Would you buy your security services from a company that lies about,
>um, everything?
>
>
>Website:
><http://www.iq-net-works.com/>
>
>Customer list (hard to find, and will probably be deleted soon):
><http://www.iq-net-works.com/clientes_english.html>
>
>Peter Gutmann sent this link to me a few weeks ago, and has challenged
>the company about their use of his name.  In response, the company has
>pulled their list of technical advisors from its website.  It forgot,
>however, to pull the list from the Spanish website.
><http://www.iq-net-works.com/spanish/equipo.html>
>Look quickly, I expect it will be gone soon.
>
>You can also look them up on archive.org, which has saved the company's
>list of advisors (also in Spanish) from 2003.  (This website is great
>for finding old versions of webpages, or webpages that are no longer
>around.)
><http://web.archive.org/web/20030705082011/www.iq-net-works.com/equipo.h
>tml> or <http://tinyurl.com/2dbwj>

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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'