Building trust on the Internet
Back in 1990, Intertrust founder Victor Shear saw some big challenges presented by the emerging technology of the Internet. Shear’s training as a sociologist led him to think about the implications of the new technology on people’s relationships, particularly in the commercial sphere.
The digital world, Shear realized, would mean three things: widespread availability of digital content; low cost, “always on” or “partially on” connectivity; and a highly distributed computing environment.
He also understood that traditional hierarchical computing security models would not be good enough to meet the needs of commerce in this new digital landscape.
Shear founded Intertrust to create technologies that provide both the control and the flexibility to support commercial relationships and interactions in a digital world.
Multiple solutions for online security
Today, Intertrust’s products allow for Internet trust between people, and for data privacy and digital security among a wide variety of devices and services. The Sunnyvale, California-based company offers a variety of devices and services, holds over 200 patents, and has another 200 patents pending around the world.
One of Intertrust’s cloud services, ExpressPlay™, helps companies securely distribute digital assets like copyrighted videos, ebooks, and games over the internet.
Another offering, whiteCryption™, is a set of security software tools for app developers to protect software code integrity from being compromised and a secure white-box cryptography library that protects cryptographic keys embedded within app code.
Open standards and interoperability
One of the keys to Intertrust’s market philosophy, says Kristin Clark, vice president of security operations, is defining and driving open standards in its industry. “Our efforts help provide the market with open technologies that provide interoperability and help set a level playing field,” she says. “That leads to the development of competitive products and services.”
Intertrust’s own products and services are aligned with this goal of open standards. ExpressPlay works with all the major Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, while whiteCryption can be applied to a wide range of software and cryptographic keys.
A trusted live answering partner
Intertrust initially started working with AnswerConnect to support its ExpressPlay service. “The value is good for the cost,” Clark says. Seeing the answering service work for ExpressPlay, other groups within Intertrust became interested. Soon, ExpressPlay SDK and whiteCryption were added to the account.
“I have no hesitation to recommend AnswerConnect to other products when they mature to the point that they need a call center,” Clark says. “Service has always been friendly and we’ve had no customer complaints. Everyone has been easy to work with and helpful. I’ve been very happy with it.”
