Advisers are always asking me about security solutions; especially encryption and sending files or e-mail with it.
Here is a new cloud-based system announced today, PrivateSky from CertiVox.
I have to verify the various claims about being “first and only” — I am always instantly suspicious when I see that.
The claim is that it is “the world's first and only certificateless secure information exchange …. [and] revolutionizes and simplifies encryption of messages, files and documents for the cloud - works for all things Internet.”
Its processes evidently require the user to activate it from with either Google's Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox web browsers and can be used from either Windows or Mac computers.
There is both a free and professional version that allows a user to send and receive encrypted messages and files with the main difference being that the “pro edition additionally allows the sender to encrypt attached files up to 10MB in size with a total file capacity of 5GB.”
UPDATE: The professional edition costs $9.95 per month or $95.00 per year.
The service uses two-factor authentication, meaning a user name and password plus some other means of authentication.
Self-described as “a one click solution where both encryption and decryption are securely completed with no disruption to a user's workflow,” the guts of the system are based on elliptic curve cryptography.
That is one type of public-key cryptography that uses the mathematics and algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields and I will not attempt to decipher this further here.
I have several inquiries out and will update this post as I receive additional information.
Visit Wikipedia's
elliptic curve cryptography entry online for more on that.
Visit
CertiVox online for more information on PrivateSky.
