tom matrullo's possibly adjacent blog

Continuing the theme of Adventures in Alleged Privacy:

Over a year ago, I pointed to Safeweb's Triangle Boy, which was attracting great attention in China because it provides surfers a cloak of anonymity.

Recently someone from there inquired about whether I could send them the software. It seems they're having trouble accessing it. I checked, and found that SafeWeb suspended its free download for consumers last November, claiming economic pressures, ISP problems, etc.

Interestingly, well before that - back in February 2001, SafeWeb announced it had received an infusion of dollars from the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel.

SafeWeb did not specify the amount, but Robert McMillan reported in Newsbytes (via Google's cache) that the CIA actually dropped $1 million on SafeWeb early in 2001. (It seems one motive was that its agents in Saudi Arabia needed to shroud themselves from meddling by the Saudi government.)

When it announced the CIA cash infusion, SafeWeb took considerable pains to make this out to be an ''arm's length'' deal:

According to the agreement, SafeWeb will develop privacy and security technology to In-Q-Tel specifications and will deliver it in two phases. The agreement between SafeWeb and In-Q-Tel is an arms-length, pure licensing agreement, involving no technology or IP transfer. In-Q-Tel will not have any board representation, management representation, or equity stake in SafeWeb. However, SafeWeb has issued warrants to In-Q-Tel, which In-Q-Tel may exercise and convert into equity in the future.
SafeWeb's core product will remain separate from any future government use of the SafeWeb technology.

Yet maybe not so oddly, it was this "core product" which then was removed from the market for rather vague reasons last November. It remains suspended, limited to a Voice of America project "to free the Internet in China."

So at the moment, I can't download Triangle Boy and send it to my correspondent in China. And in the era of Total Information Awareness, I am left to wonder about the confluence of Spooks and Geeks, as is the Economist.

That magazine noted that in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, "Security is likely to play a bigger role in the design of technology." Investments like In-Q-Tel's make it clear that the intertwining of government in security issues is likely to grow in intimacy:

The rapprochement will, in any case, settle the question of whether the high-tech industry and government can remain at arm's length.

More on In-Q-Tel here. More on Triangle Boy:

SafeWeb also has a kewl presentation, in Flash 6. What a tangled web we weave...

Your thoughts welcome.