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19 July 1999

______________________________
Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc.
AFFILIATE NEWSLETTER
July 18, 1999
Volume 1.5
______________________________
********** SPECIAL ISSUE **********
----> Freedom 1.0 Beta 2 <----
Serial # included! (batteries extra)
***********************************
Getting Started With Freedom Beta 2
* Download Information
* Your Serial Number
* Beta 2 Release Notes
* Getting Support
Freedom Pseudonyms (=93Nyms)
* What Are They?
* Nyms and the Internet
* How Do Freedom Nyms Protect Me?
* How Many Should I Create?
Affiliate News
* Viewing Your Stats
* Making A Good Impression ;-)
ZK News
* July Media Coverage
Privacy News
* Dealing with the Devil
* FTC - No Net Privacy Regulation Necessary
* Congress Focuses On Net Privacy/Encryption
____________________________________________________
IMPORTANT: If you change your email address, I
need to know - it's the only way we can reach you!
Please update your contact info at Partner Central -
http://www.zeroknowledge.com/partners/login.asp
____________________________________________________
In last month's newsletter, I mentioned that you would all
be receiving your own copy of Freedom 1.0 Beta 1. Shortly
after that, however, we discovered a major bug that forced
us to stop sending out any subsequent invitations.
Rather than contact (read: =93Oh no, more mail from Jordan!)
each of you to let you know about the coming delay, I
decided to hold off while our Freedom team worked hard on
correcting the problem.
The end result is that we are now able to offer you the
much improved Freedom 1.0 Beta 2 - immediately available to
download. I've dedicated a large part of this newsletter to
helping you get up and running with Freedom - from the
install and setup - to the nym creation process. After all,
how can you promote a revolutionary software like Freedom
to your faithful users if you haven't tried it yourselves?!
Besides, and I never get tired of saying this - the Zero
Knowledge Web Affiliate Program is unique among _all_
affiliate programs on the Net because Freedom will
revolutionize the way people use the Internet.
Yes you'll earn money, but you'll also ride the wave with
us as we stand up for YOUR right to privacy online, _now_,
before it's too late. Once you give up your private and
personal information - all the legislation in the world
won't be able to purge your personal data out of 1000's
of Internet databases. Believe me. Freedom now.
_______________________________________________
NOTE: Subsequent beta releases will no longer require
that we contact you upon their release. When an upgrade
becomes available, Freedom will detect it and advise you
on upgrade procedures at startup.
AOL USERS: Freedom currently does NOT support AOL. If
you're an AOL user and would like to see Freedom
compatible with your environment, please send feedback to:
http://www.aol.com/info/feedback.html
____________________________________________
-----------------------------------
GETTING STARTED WITH FREEDOM BETA 2
-----------------------------------
-> Download Information
You can download Freedom from the following URL:
http://www.freedom.net/products/download/beta.asp
Just answer the three short questions near the bottom of
the page and hit the Download Freedom Now button. The
beta itself is 5.7 megs, and download time estimates are
included on the page as well.
Once you initiate the Freedom download, you'll jump to
another page on our site - a convenient Freedom mini
quick-start guide, which explains in clear and simple
terms how to get up and running with Freedom.
The guide will help you create and manage your digital
identities and you'll also find out how Freedom protects
your privacy while surfing, sending and receiving email,
and reading/posting to newsgroups.
We recommend that you keep this browser window open during
the Freedom install, to use as a handy reference tool. It
contains many bits of information, and numerous screenshots
to help guide you through the install and nym creation
process.
If you want to go back and re-read the guide at any time,
the URL is: http://www.Freedom.net/support/quickguide
Please note that this version of Freedom is pre-release
software and comes with no guarantees. Zero-Knowledge
accepts no responsibility for any damage caused to your
computer through the use of Freedom 1.0 Beta 2. As with
any beta product, we strongly recommend that you backup
your system before installing Freedom 1.0 Beta 2.
-------------------------------------------------
-> Your Personal Serial Number
The first time you launch Freedom, the configuration
wizard will ask you to enter in a valid serial number.
Your Freedom serial number is:
V3AHZJWRMYH84X
The serial number is case-sensitive, so be sure to
enter it in correctly.
----------------------
-> Freedom Beta 2 Release Notes
As part of the Freedom install, you'll receive a small text
file entitled Freedom Beta 2 Release Notes, which you'll
find in the Freedom folder on your computer. We encourage
you to read through the notes as they contain a lot of
important information regarding the beta and many known
issues affecting it.
Remember that this version of Freedom is intended for the
home user and was not meant to work in a corporate/LAN
environment. Basically, if you're trying to run Freedom
behind a firewall or through a proxy server, you will
likely experience difficulties.
----- Important IE5 Warning -----
Do _not_ install Freedom 1.0 Beta 2 if you are using
Microsoft IE5 version 5.00.2014.0216 with upgrades 3717,
q231452, q231450 or version 5.00.0910.1309, without
FIRST upgrading to the latest version.
You can check your IE version by clicking on "Help"
then "About Internet Explorer" in your current IE browser.
If you're running Windows98 you can upgrade via the
"Windows Update" button in your "Start" menu.
If you're running Windows 95, you can upgrade your IE5
browser to the latest version by going to the following
URL, clicking on the Windows95 link and following the
instructions:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/ie5all.htm
You can then safely install the Freedom Beta 2 client.
------------------------------------------------------
-> Getting Support
The support section of our website, located at:
http://www.Freedom.net/support , includes several sections
designed to help you out in the event that you run into any
snags - here's a quick rundown on what you'll find:
- Knowledge Center
A repository of all known issues, the Knowledge Center
will help you locate any information that might help you
deal with any difficulties you may encounter. With
keyword searching, your solution is only a click away.
- Top 10 Known Issues
Updated in real-time, this section lists the most
commonly requested articles from our information
database. Use it to find out how to deal with your
problem _fast_!
- Incident/Feature Reports
You've looked everywhere for a solution to your problem
but you can't find it anywhere. Simply fill out the short
Incident Report form, click Submit, and one of our
techs will get right to work on it.
Or, maybe you have an idea for _the_ missing feature that
will make Freedom your new best friend. This is the place
to jot it down. Our Feature Request form ensures that
valuable feedback like yours gets sent to the people that
can make it happen.
Also, be sure to check the Freedom Help file - it contains
a ton of great info on this whole Internet privacy thing
and how Freedom and Freedom Nyms open up a whole new
_private_ world for you on the Internet.
----------------------------------------
------------------
FREEDOM PSEUDONYMS
------------------
-> WHAT ARE THEY?
Freedom pseudonyms, or Nyms, are personal digital
identities that you can use on the Internet. We refer to
them as digital identities because unlike physical
identities, Freedom Nyms can only be used in the digital
world - the Internet. Each nym is represented by an email
address ending in freedom.net - for example bob@freedom.net.
All sorts of personal information about you trickles out as
you browse the web: a cookie here, an IP address there. Put
together, these crumbs of information can reproduce a
startlingly complete picture of your browsing habits: a
profile of everything you've done or read that is available
to marketers, potential employers, or anyone else who will
pay for it.
Freedom ties every bit of personal information that gets
sent out in this way to the Nym you have selected, and
more importantly, it does so in a way that makes it
impossible for anyone to connect your Nym with your real
identity - or to any of your other Nyms either!
As you browse the web, each Nym will begin to collect its
own cookies, reputation, and history. At any time, all you
have to do is switch to another Nym, and as far as anyone
can tell, you're a completely different person.
-> NYMS AND THE INTERNET
On the Internet, we often correspond with people we've
never physically met. Examples of this include discussion
groups, chat rooms and miscellaneous email correspondence
including business contacts, personal contacts and others.
Since none of these people have actually met us, and we
haven't met any of them, we might say that we share a
pseudonymous relationship with these people - because their
email addresses and the names they choose to correspond
with, may not represent their true identities. The
important thing to remember, is that we base our like or
dislike of people we meet and correspond with on the
Internet by the way they communicate with us, not by their
email addresses or the names they use.
This is an important concept to understand, so let's look
at an actual example to illustrate this point:
Mike is a student at ZKS University. An avid hockey fan,
Mike often corresponds with hockey fans around the country
on the latest news and statistics from around the league.
Mike's email address is puck@zks.net. Since none of his
Internet hockey pals have ever met him, Mike's "identity"
is represented by his email address. If a post is made to
a popular hockey discussion list by puck@zks.net, many
people will instantly recognise the author, because
puck@zks.net represents a unique and persistent identity
that they have come to know and like - online.
Mike is using a pseudonym - puck@zks.net - to correspond
online, without revealing his actual identity.
Freedom takes this concept much further by enabling users
to create up to 5 nyms for Internet use. Not only will
people be unable to relate these nyms back to your actual
identity, they won't be able to relate them to one another
either. In fact no one, not even Zero-Knowledge, will be
able to tell who is behind a given pseudonym.
-> HOW DO FREEDOM NYMS PROTECT ME?
Pseudonymous identities are not practical if you leave a
trail of "electronic breadcrumbs" that can be traced back
to you. Internet traffic normally travels from source to
destination unsecured (i.e. not encrypted) while passing
through servers which can be easily identified. This is
like sending confidential information using a postcard -
anyone who handles the postcard knows the sender, the
recipient and the contents. This unsecured delivery system
makes message interception, falsification and tracking
possible.
To solve this problem, Freedom uses high-level encryption
and secure, anonymous network connections (servers) to
prevent someone from tracking your Internet activities or
even discovering your nym's true identity.
Freedom encrypts all Internet traffic and sends it through
a series of anonymous Freedom servers, known as the Freedom
Network. Each server in the chain knows only the previous
and following servers in the path (where the data came from
and where it's going next) and nothing about the information
that it's handling. This makes the system incredibly secure
since no single server knows both the origin and the
destination of the traffic. In fact, no one, not even your
ISP, can monitor your web activities.
-> HOW MANY Nyms SHOULD I CREATE?
Freedom allows you to create up to 5 Nyms - unique, digital
identities of which you are the sole (soul?) owner. Its
entirely up to you to decide how many nyms you wish to
bring into the digital world, but here are a few points to
consider:
The first nym you create should always represent your true
self, i.e. susan@beta.freedom.net.
Why?
Anyone using Freedom benefits from secure, encrypted mail.
By using a Nym for your regular mail correspondence, you
can rest assured that your encrypted messages cannot be
read by anyone as they travel through the Internet. Your
messages will only be decrypted as they exit the Freedom
Network before reaching the recipient's ISP. Using this
Nym, you can communicate securely with friends and family.
Besides, you would never write a your snail mail message on
the outside of the envelope where anyone handling the mail
could read it, so why do the equivalent with email by
sending unencrypted messages?
NYMS HELP YOU SEPARATE YOUR DIFFERENT INTERNET ACTIVITIES
Currently, your Internet activities are closely bound to
your personal identity - the inability to separate the two
means that anyone can track your personal preferences.
In the physical world, you can call in to a live radio talk
show to express your views on a given topic while referring
to yourself simply by your first name. On the Net, we lack
this basic privacy. Chatrooms, discussion lists, mailing
lists, and newsgroups all require some basic user
information, such as your first and last name, and your
email address.
By separating your varied online activities, Freedom Nyms
let you interact online while maintaining total control over
your personal information.
For example, you might enjoy participating in a heated
political discussion group. You can create a nym uniquely
for that purpose, something like citizen@freedom.net.
this particular nym enables you to freely participate in
the discussion group, send and receive email with other
group members, and not have to worry about having those
views and opinions tied in to your true self.
Or, you might opt to create a nym for your online sports
interests, named after your favourite team or player.
It's entirely up to you to decide how many pseudonyms to
create. You might use one for subscribing to mailing lists
secure in the knowledge that no one can relate your
interests in those list topics to your true self. Maybe
you'll decide to create a nym for online research purposes.
Whatever nyms you decide to create, remember:
There are no hard and fast rules for nym creation!
--------------------------------------------------
--------------
AFFILIATE NEWS
--------------
-> Viewing Your Stats
For any affiliate, the ability to view their statistics -
impressions, cickthroughs, sales, commissions - is the
single most important factor that drives them to Partner
Central each day.
To date, we haven't been able to offer you this as yet.
The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, since Freedom is
still in beta mode, there isn't any transaction data to
report. Secondly, we've been scrambling like worker
ants just to keep up with the demand placed on our HR dep't
as we ramp up from under 30 employees to over 150 by the
end of the year!
Well, we have some good news to report. Our new web
database guru - Evan Desai - is working uniquely on Partner
Central at the moment, building an affiliate stats section
that will make you want to do your banking here at Zero -
Knowledge! As soon as I get a completion date from Evan,
I'll confirm it here.
-> Making a Good Impression
We have been able to manually calculate how many
impressions we've been getting from the affiliate channel
and the numbers are extraordinary - millions per month with
roughly 1500 affiliates!! Pretty impressive. Part of our
stats section will be a breakdown for each affiliate of
banner, button and text-link performance. This information
will enable you to maximise your clickthroughs by
prioritising the creative that works while shelving that
which doesn't.
Once we start serving targeted creative based on the
content of your site, you'll be part of a dynamic
affiliate program that actually tailors itself to the needs
of your users.
--------------
-------
ZK NEWS
-------
-> JULY MEDIA COVERAGE
ZDNet, July 12, 1999
Privacy hits big at DEF CON: Zero Knowledge out to change
the world with Freedom Net. But is it a lawsuit waiting to
happen?
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2292148,00.html
PC World Online, July 10, 1999
Hackers Gather in Vegas: DefCon '99 draws security experts
from both sides
http://www.pcworld.com/pcwtoday/article/0,1510,11737,00.html
CNN Online, July 12, 1999
DefCon '99 draws security experts from both sides
http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9907/12/hair.idg/
Financial Post, Canada, July 10th,1999
Hot time for hackers
http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost.asp?f=3D990710/25508.html
PC World Online, July 8, 1999
Guard Your Online Privacy: How to remain faceless and
traceless on the Net
http://www.pcworld.com/heres_how/article/0,1400,11681+1+0,00.html
The Gazette - (Business Technology) Montreal, July 7th, 1999
A new job is just a click away
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/pages/990707/2577808.html
-----------------------------------------------------------
(o o)
----ooO--(_)--Ooo----
PRIVACY NEWS
--------------------- =
- Dealing With the Devil - Buying Your Privacy
Is forking over data on your favorite toothpaste and other
purchasing habits worth a free home page? A free E-mail box?
What about a free computer? Such is the trade-off many Web
visitors are being asked to make, as E-commerce sites try to
assemble detailed marketing databases by tempting consumers
with free products and services.
http://www.businessweek.com/cgi-bin/bwdaily_full?right=3Ddnflash/july1999/nf90715c.htm#
- FTC Says No Online Privacy Laws Needed
Private industry is improving in its efforts to protect
online privacy, and no legislation is needed at this time,
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Robert Pitofsky told a
congressional subcommittee Tuesday.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2293497,00.html#
- Congress Focusing On Net Privacy
The complex issues of online privacy, encryption export
rules and competition in high-speed Internet access
services take center stage this week as Congress returns
from a week - long Fourth of July recess.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/cyber/capital/13capital.html#
-----------------------------------------------------------
Well, that's all for now, it's time to get started!
Thank you for your interest in Internet Privacy - the most
important issue affecting Netizens around the world since
the dawn of the digital age.
Welcome to Freedom.
------------------
Please address all comments, questions and feedback to:
Jordan Socran
Web Partnership Programs Mgr.
Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc.
mailto:jordan@zeroknowledge.com
___________________________________________________________
To register for the ZKS Web Affiliate Program:
http://www.zks.net/partners/web.asp
To register for the Freedom Beta:
http://www.zks.net/products/download/
To unsubscribe from the affiliate newsletter,
please use the "newsletter" check box in the
"Edit Your Profile" section of Partner Central:
http://www.zeroknowledge.com/partners/login.asp
___________________________________________________________
Copyright (c) 1999
Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc.
All Rights Reserved