Shredding emails, splitting up and rolling dice

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP) and its American cousin, Carnivore, have raised many questions around the area of the privacy of email and under what circumstances the state should have the ability to intercept and monitor data.

Further issues centre on how effective such monitoring operations be and whether counter-measures can be devised.

Software companies are already developing systems that may help to make RIP and Carnivore ineffective.

US-based company, AbsoluteFuture, has produced a product named "SafeMessage", which, according to the company's website, "provides total privacy by preventing the duplication of its encrypted messages and allowing the sender to set the message auto-shred date, leaving no permanent record anywhere".

This tool allows users to make an email message disappear a given time after being opened. The company claims that the footprints of the email (on server and local PC hard drives) are completely obliterated.

Several other companies, including Disappearing E-Mail and ZipLip, are active in the production of tools that help to encrypt and self-destruct emails. (This is not the same as email messages disappearing or being "garbled" at random by the email and server systems themselves.) So where does this leave the security forces? Will security forces be forced into a position of proposing legislation that would seek to 'prohibit' commercial companies from the creation of software systems that aim to hinder the ability of the state to intercept and read email?

We must hope that whatever powers are handed to security forces, appropriate safeguards are also put into place. Many feel that RIP and Carnivore do not have such adequate safeguards and together may lay the foundations for future governments to be tempted by corruption or to become more autocratic.

Will such encryption tools and e-mail destruction tools provoke a new wave of legislation? Will RIP and Carnivore pervert the state? The next few years will be very interesting. After all knowledge is power. Or is it?

Informix divides to conquer

Informix has been restructuring. Since August, it has been consolidating business units into a two-pronged structure. Now, to complete the process, it has announced that it's to be split into two independent operating businesses. One will be taking on the traditional database and warehousing activities while the other will be developing platform-independent ebusiness solutions.

The first company will be known as Informix Software. It will focus on sales of the Informix database and the development of the database engine to incorporate the capabilities of multiple Informix products. Jim Foy, currently senior vice president of the database business operation, will head the business. The company expects to have around 2,300 employees and have revenues close to $800m this year.

The second outfit is yet to be named but is being referred to as the ebusiness solutions company. This business will be responsible for the development of web publishing, ecommerce, and business intelligence solutions, using all of the major database technologies - including Informix. Peter Fiore will the president of this new business. There will be 1,100 employees and expected revenue figures are around $120m for 2000.

Both companies will be wholly owned subsidiaries of Informix Corporation. A public offering of both businesses is likely in the future. There will be a number of management changes as the organisations split and Informix has restated its expectations for the upcoming quarters to take into account the likely costs of the split.

Hopefully for Informix, this announcement represents the end of a long and difficult road. Of all the major database businesses, it has been the slowest to react to the commoditisation of its product and has had a series of failed attempts to reinvent itself. Now, it has focussed its activities into two areas with the aim of allowing the different activities to be carried out independently.

Fundamentally, Informix had two options. It could take the application and solutions-oriented approach that has been so successful with Oracle or it could adopt a systems integrator model that has worked well for Sybase. It appears that Informix has chosen the latter and we can only hope that it proves to be a success.

How to make telecommunications interesting

By now everyone is sick of hearing about the problems surrounding the local loop unbundling issues of the UK telecoms market. In a desperate attempt to win friends and influence the public at large (short of actually doing anything) Oftel has revealed the process which will be used to decide who will get access to the local loop.

In order to get access to the local loop (the cables connecting a telephone exchange to a telephone) telcos need to have equipment installed in the local exchanges themselves. After a long and tortuous process, BT is, finally, making this facility available to its competitors. However, every telco needs to install their own equipment in each exchange that they wish to service. Telephone exchanges do not have an unlimited amount of free space. So what happens when a large number of companies want to install equipment in the same exchange?

There is, of course, a process for allocating space to telcos. The process includes a complex single transferable vote scheme, the precise details of which are a closely guarded secret. Oftel has become Notell; it refuses to disclose how the system works. Can anyone think of any possible reason for not disclosing the details?

Well, in order to avoid any accusations of vote rigging (though how could we tell?) it is reassuring to know that the voting process is being scrutinised by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS). The ERS has a long record in monitoring elections in every possible sector of society.

Around 30 telcos have applied to install equipment in local exchanges. It is highly unlikely that many exchanges could house equipment from all 30 applicants. With this in mind it is interesting to discover that should the above space allocation process fail to decide who gets to install their equipment, a high-tech solution exists to resolve the issue. The ERS has confirmed that the telcos concerned will be invited to roll a die - highest number wins the space.

Whilst the ERS considers that this outcome to be unlikely, it is possible. So after months and months of argument, delay and general confusion we may arrive at a game of chance. The range and costs of future services available to end-users may depend solely upon the roll of a dice.

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