PRIVACY
Web-privacy watchdogs groaned when news hit that GeoCities would be investigated for selling user data and that market-research company Engage Technologies had been tracking - without permission - the online buying patterns of over 30 million Net users. Your name may not be included in these databases now, but that could change. Prospective employers or nosy neighbors may soon have cheap access to your entire browsing history - including porn, off-shore gambling, and radical political sites.
How can you avoid such scrutiny? Suggested methods include creating multiple identities, encrypting messages, and using untraceable routing. Sounds like a technical hassle, but that's where Montreal-based Zero-Knowledge Systems (www.zks.net/) comes in. The company's Freedom software client is designed to do all this and still work with any browser or mail program. You'll use your regular ISP, but from there your communications will travel over servers running Zero-Knowledge software. Everything is encrypted and anonymized. Even your ISP won't know what you're up to - and you'll be spam-proof.
Services such as HotMail already offer online anonymity, but Zero-Knowledge president and cofounder Austin Hill isn't impressed. "They log your IP number when you connect," he says, "and they have surrendered that information to law enforcement on demand. Our system hides your IP number and your physical location, even from the Freedom network itself."
In 1994, Hill and his brother started Total.Net, now the third largest Canadian ISP. Being based in Canada enables him to export strong crypto without violating US laws. Hill is betting that users who've never thought about online privacy will want it once they see the implications. "When they see posts coming from freedom.net," he says, "they'll realize the need for it too."
A no-frills numeric pseudonym with the Freedom network will cost US$9.95 a year. Extras such as multiple vanity pseudonyms will be available in a $49.95 full-service package - and privacy purists can pay with good old untraceable cash.
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