IT-Business News, 02/09/09 (translated from German)
Viruses die young
Security service with a patent
The Nutzwerk company in Leipzig offers a server-based virus protection and data filter. Their philosophy is simple: What has no effect is of nobody's interest. The technology is new: a program the size of 300KB is installed on a server. The result might be revolutionary: A "clean" internet without the necessity for maintenance. The young company from Leipzig, Nutzwerk, seems to have achieved what did not seem possible before: Thanks to SaferSurf nothing that is not wanted by the user will reach the home PC or the company: no computer viruses, no unwanted eMails. All dialers are blocked, pages with problematic content are not displayed if the user does not want it. Ad banners, spam? – no problem any more.
The process has been patented, the service has been available since the 25th of May and can be subscribed to. With 2000 paying customers (from 1 euro per month) and 4000 testers the company has one aim that actually seems to be realistic: to wipe out viruses. Because all loaded internet pages as well as eMails and other traffic are directed via a proxy server where they are filtered and cleaned of viruses and predefined contents. All this happens in real-time with a maximum time loss of 4 percent, while a constantly updated database is running in the background. Thanks to this method viruses now only have a lifespan of half an hour at the most, the time needed to identify and eliminate a new type – and according to the vision it works all over the world. With all this, who would still want to write viruses?
No matter where the server stands, all types of users are protected, and no special knowledge is required. However, according to the CEOs Ramona Wonneberger and René Holzer the focus is on private internet users. Their plan is to win the big providers over. They are convinced that, if one provider uses the system (NTT/VERIO already does), the others will have to follow suit. Their problem: They might be put under the obligation to ensure a "clean" internet. Until now they did not have an appopriate tool.
Comment by Gerd Decker:
No doubt that the Nutzwerk company has managed to make the use of the internet easier. The provider can now provide virus protection and predefined filtered contents to the customers who do not need any special knowledge themselves. Parents, teachers and even entrepreneurs have less to worry about.
It is hardly foreseeable which services can be based on the new tool. But what will become of the internet if the possibility to control the content does not lie with the user, but with the provider? Not only the provider could be made responsible for the content delivered by him, but he could also be forced to eliminate certain contents. How powerful must an interest group be to be able to make demands? Undemocratically governed countries never had a problem with that. This brings up the question who is going to control the controllers.
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