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Rivetz

A Driving Force for Decentralized Security

BLOCKCHAIN ISSUE

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RIVETZ

Blockchain technologies are disrupting businesses worldwide, creating the need for new information and economic models for software and services. The immutability of blockchain technologies brings cross border and cross enterprise assurance that data is a shared truth, which will enable a slew of new service models. From exchanging value to enabling globally trusted communications, the old paradigms of control will change. The future is decentralized, putting users back in control. However, the current state of the internet and the mess that has been created by our password driven lifestyle stands in the way.

“We are giving every device a smart contract for itself - it is the evolution to decentralized controls for everything,” said Steven Sprague, CEO and co-founder of Rivetz.

Rivetz was founded in 2013 with the mission to “provide users with a simpler and safer experience” and presenting service providers with “a more valuable subscriber for blockchain, IoT and cloud.” The company has offices across the U.S. in New York, New York; Richmond, Massachusetts; and Santa Cruz, California. Rivetz also delivers a new paradigm of decentralized cybersecurity to simplify and enhance the digital user experience. With its combination of blockchain technology and the hardware-based trusted computing capabilities, Rivetz verifies the intent of every transaction. Using this capability, the firm intends to transform the internet with its device-centric global model so users can enjoy online products and services safely, without interruption.

“We hate using passwords. We can’t remember them, and we keep changing them every day,” Steven said. “We have to download stupid apps that remember all our passwords.”

Rivetz bridges today’s obsolete username/password model to a future where security is built in. Consumers, mobile carriers and enterprises all benefit from Rivetz’s powerful device-centric security model. Equipping developers with the technical solutions, foundations, protocols and distributed key management, Rivetz security seamlessly integrates with any blockchain, cloud or IoT project.

A vision for creating secure gateways

The era of enterprises controlling all aspects of cybersecurity at all times is over. Security has moved to the end point, which means developers need to build security into their applications. Secure hardware provides an excellent means of securing device and user identity, creating protected access and interaction from the endpoint to an application. The Rivetz SDK makes built-in app security easy to integrate for developers. The founders of Rivetz have been involved in the trusted computing space for more than 25 years.

Steven Sprague, co-founder, CEO

Steven Sprague, co-founder, CEO:

Steven is one of the principal industry evangelists for the application of trusted computing technology. Steven served as President and CEO of Wave Systems Corp. for 14 years before transitioning to the board of directors. A popular speaker on cybersecurity and trusted computing, Steven has a strong technical foundation in the principles, capabilities, and business models of incorporating trusted hardware into everyday computing – and is skilled at translating these concepts into layman’s terms.

Michael Sprague, co-founder, CTO:

Michael is an original web veteran. He developed and directed products spanning digital micro-transactions and trusted execution networks in the nineties, interactive TV and network video distribution in the aught and device identity and social media privacy more recently. Michael’s career began as a developer and architect for a small but prestigious consulting firm that was contracted to redefine the global banking system for clients like JP Morgan, Citibank and Fidelity.

Core competencies

The Rivetz solution offers the user a simpler and safer experience for enterprises and end users by taking full advantage of the built-in cybersecurity capabilities in mobile devices. Rivetz uses the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) already built into millions of mobile devices to provide endpoint security for the decentralized world. While a blockchain can store information, it cannot prove that the information stored on the chain was intended. Rivetz provides the evidence that a blockchain transaction came from a known device in a known condition from a known user – in other words, that the transaction was intended. This is called attestation, and is accomplished while also maintaining the user’s privacy and consent.

“Blockchain allows us, for the first time, to store the attestation data in an immutable memory,” Steven said. “This assures that the device can verify its integrity is the same as was registered before — and provides the real-time compliance and long-term assurance a device was in a provable state to deliver or create information.”

Built on this foundation of security, Rivetz offers a fully integrated a high-assurance model for policy attached to every key. This gives device owners the ability to establish that the keys can be used only if certain conditions are satisfied. Keys with policy provides the owner with the centralized controls they desire for their transactions with the privacy and decentralized services that blockchain enables. Finally, users are provided the peace of mind that the keys they use every day are backed up across their collection of devices, thus providing a safe environment while also reducing the risk of theft by hackers. Rivetz delivers the controls that are needed with the simple automated process that is expected.

Kicking the idea up

Rivetz is currently partnered with more than 25 companies and organizations. In 2014, Rivetz partnered with Trustonic, which controls access to the Trusted Execution Environment inside ARM’s processors.

Their early 2018 partnership with ElevenPaths, the cybersecurity arm of global telecommunications firm Telefónica, garnered a great deal of international attention. Through this collaboration, Rivetz has extended its device protections to leverage the existing carrier SIM security and subscriber controls with which many users are already familiar – the project is called Dual Roots of Trust. The technology protects users by cryptographically splitting private keys between the SIM and the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE).

The company has been graced with following awards for the work they are doing:

> BlockAward for Best in Currency - Privacy, from BlockWorld 2018.

> Enterprise Security Magazine named Rivetz a Top 10 Blockchain Solution Provider for 2018.

> TAG Cyber named Rivetz a Distinguished Vendor for its 2018 report.

A future that is secure

The Rivetz Software Developer Kit can be used by any industry, product, or service. Anyone who wants to offer built-in endpoint security using the TEE can easily use Rivetz’s SDK to improve their security and relationships with their users.

Rivetz offers basic applications for 2-factor authentication and chat. These applications are in early release phase in Google Play and are fully integrated with the Rivetz Network. The integration of policy controls for keys enable next-generation provable controls as part of every transaction.

The Rivetz Dual Roots of Trust solution provides hardware-level, carrier-grade protection of the secrets and processes within the device. The company is working to enable this capability broadly across Telefónica’s global base of 300 million subscribers.

“We think the right model is that security needs to be built in. It needs to be device-centric, not usercentric,” Steven said. “We are users of our devices. Our devices need to work for us and need to deliver that experience.”

Forging ahead

Rivetz is hard at work developing the technology for mobile devices to operate blockchain and IoT, offering a simpler and safer solution for enterprises and end users alike. They plan to expand this capability to millions of devices and be part of the standard crypto offering provided by carriers to their customers. We believe every user will benefit from the use of such cryptographic security for identity, global transactions, supply chain and other new and exciting services. Rivetz will play a vital role in helping bring the next billion users to blockchain with world-class protections and security built in by design. With products such as these, they might just achieve it.

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