The term "going postal" may have bad connotations, but for our S&P 500 customer, the post office has provided a huge opportunity that has spanned many decades and has led to myriad related products, services and software solutions.
Yozons has developed and deployed more than a handful of enterprise web applications for this customer, including divisions in the United States, Canada and Europe. The web deployments are distinct geographically and by type of web contracting that takes place, mirroring the specialized divisions and needs of this international company.
They also have deployed our patented e-signature software on our managed private web server offering, complete with a warm standby operating in another state, freeing up their internal IT resources. The private web server gives them the advantage of complete branding using their domain name and SSL certificate, custom secured FTP access to their back-end systems, as well as isolation of their data from our many other customers. Furthermore, Yozons provides 24x7x365 monitoring and daily encrypted off-site storage of backups.
Several of their web applications involve multiple forms in a package, with a multi-step process involving their customers who sign the agreements, as well as outside third-parties who approve and authorize their customers’ applications. Reports keep them current on the status at all times.
Though Yozons generally discourages printing documents, signing and then faxing or mailing them back, a couple of deployments had this requirement as an option. Regardless, Yozons delivered on time and within budget. Yozons built into the web contracting process a fax processing step so that returned signed agreements can be uploaded, annotated and stored with the electronic version. Having this feature ensures all agreement packages signed online and on paper are kept in the single encrypted repository with powerful search capabilities to find their agreements.
Showing posts with label web applications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web applications. Show all posts
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
Web-based e-signature vendor acquires patent license
Yozons recently signed yet another licensee to the Yozons '079 patent. We expect more to come as vendors realize the reach of our patent's web-based, secure document delivery and optional electronic signature system and method, and support and acknowledge how Yozons has changed the landscape from a user-controlled PKI-based signature model to a lighter-weight server-controlled signature model.
This U.S.-based competitor develops and operates various web and mobile apps, and negotiated a patent license that fits their particular needs and ensures their thousands of daily clients are protected when using their online document signature service.
While the negotiations lasted over a month, we applaud the decision they reached after discussing the details with their attorney. Because they were quick to understand the depth of our patent and how it applied to their technology, we were able to negotiate favorable terms. Yozons prefers to have competitors so long as we are compensated for our invention that has created a healthy marketplace for web-based document processing services throughout the United States.
Their e-signatures service is typical of competitors who make use of our patent's teachings:
This U.S.-based competitor develops and operates various web and mobile apps, and negotiated a patent license that fits their particular needs and ensures their thousands of daily clients are protected when using their online document signature service.
While the negotiations lasted over a month, we applaud the decision they reached after discussing the details with their attorney. Because they were quick to understand the depth of our patent and how it applied to their technology, we were able to negotiate favorable terms. Yozons prefers to have competitors so long as we are compensated for our invention that has created a healthy marketplace for web-based document processing services throughout the United States.
Their e-signatures service is typical of competitors who make use of our patent's teachings:
- Documents are stored online in a centralized server.
- Documents are transferred between parties securely, typically over HTTPS, in order to effect secure document delivery that ensures the privacy of the business communications. HTTPS makes use of a traditional PKI in which the browser uses the web server's SSL digital certificate to establish a secure link using the web server's asymmetric public key, and then generates a unique symmetric encryption key that's shared only between the user and the server for the purpose of encrypting the document and related data transferred over that link. But the key is that previously, end-users created and exchanged their own keys, as well as performed their own encryption and digital signatures.
- The entire process makes use of a web application, giving them the ability to communicate and e-sign with a myriad of devices connected over the Internet, including PCs, start phones and tablets.
- The e-signing ceremony typically involves typing their name, drawing their signature or clicking in the relevant areas to indicate their agreement.
- Typical routing of documents is handled using the e-mail address of the parties involved, generally sending a unique ID that links the user to the correct document and party in the online process. Some users, typically customers of the service, authenticate using traditional username and password, and can initiate transactions, track them, download completed agreements, etc.
- Users can add their electronic signatures quickly and easily, without requiring special client-side software, digital certificates, and/or key management.
- The server provide an audit trail including IP addresses and timestamps.
In general, the present application relates to computer software, hardware and communication networks, and in particular, to a system and method for securely processing digital documents, including appending digital signatures, without requiring pre-established individual identity verification, digital certificates, end-user cryptography, key management or key exchange.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
The EU's "advanced" electronic signature is retrograde
Like the term "Big Brother," the European Union's (EU) "advanced" electronic signature is an oxymoron designed to impress you with self-proclaimed goodness, but is in fact retrograde and certainly not advanced. Adoption and interoperability remain poor and put too much onus on individuals and trusting unknown entities.
English author George Orwell wrote all about such government Newspeak in his famous novel, 1984. Committees, governments and big corporations try these FUD tactics (fear, uncertainty and doubt) all the time because they work more often than not. It's your advantage in life to see through the blather.
PKI has been around since the early 1970s, a product of British intelligence. It's useful in many scenarios, and the world wide web relies on it for the HTTPS protocol, though even that would work well for most without a PKI requirement.
RSA and other PKI vendors have led "Year of PKI" celebrations at least since 1996. It's been declared "dead" just as many times and such declarations of death are often interwoven with declarations of its grand dominance. Renowned cryptography expert Bruce Schneier provides good insights in his Ten Risks of PKI: What You're not Being Told about Public Key Infrastructure.
There are numerous reports of stolen digital certificates, stolen private keys, hacked certificate authorities, after-the-fact certificate revocation lists, etc., including a long-lived Windows trojan called ZeuS that now makes use of "stolen" digital certificates assigned to Microsoft. Of course, a digital certificate is supposed to be public, so stealing one should have little value whatsoever. I mean, every HTTPS web site gives you it's certificate freely and your browser comes pre-loaded with many "trusted" certificate authorities (if you've never heard of them, how can you trust them?). But PKI relies on a chain of trust, so it's only as trustworthy as its weakest link, and there are innumerable weak links as recently demonstrated by the ZeuS exploit.
Unlike a certificate, if your private key itself is compromised, all bets are off, which is precisely why it's so odd that some large e-signature vendors put their entire customer base at risk by using a single signing key for every document signed by every person. One large vendor just uses a salt+message digest of your document instead of a digital signature even though a simple database update of the document with the newly computed message digest would make the so-called "authoritative copy" a fraud.
Bad security remains the norm at loud companies (i.e. big spenders on marketing and freebies) that demonstrably value profits and market share over quality and customer concern. Say it loudly and often and hope people come to believe it's true. We continue to read about competitors, even those built on a PKI, that don't even encrypt your private documents containing personal and private information when stored, leaving them open to perusal simply by querying for it.
Despite the reality of PKI issues, vendors, EU committees and international standards bodies (how many of you use their "advanced" OSI model of networking rather than the Internet?) continue to claim that you need a PKI in order to have an "advanced" electronic signature. If it weren't so real for millions, the best advice would be to ignore it until it goes away. It's really a shame, too, because the EU has a perfectly good electronic signature law modeled on the U.S. E-Sign Act of 2000. Some just cannot believe that their technobabble isn't required by law and are trying to trick you into thinking you have to be old school in order to be advanced. It's not just the EU either: before the U.S. E-Sign Act, very few e-signatures were performed in the United States because state laws also mandated a PKI.
For e-signatures, PKI just hasn't been workable. The costs of deployment are high. Scaling and interoperability are hard. The issues of trust remain unresolved. Most computers and networks are notoriously insecure. Users are often clueless about such details -- and rightly so. Even so-called secure cards have to be connected to these very computers and networks and be operated by these very users. (Just watch President Clinton look over the shoulder to see the short PIN entered by Prime Minister Ahern and then exchange their "smart" cards. If leaders of nations can't be trusted to do this correctly, you are right to wonder if any other folks will be better at it.)
Would you consider getting rid of banks because they are too insecure? I mean, clearly you should keep your money in a safe in your home and transport it using armed couriers all controlled solely by yourself. Why would you trust an intermediary like a bank to keep your money safe and allow simple transactions by check, ATM, debit card or wire transfer when it doesn't even keep your deposited money in that very bank's vault?
How about credit card companies? Clearly they are not secure, again allowing money to move easily just by entering some numbers into an online store or providing it to other merchants for payment processing.
The post office, FedEx and UPS certainly cannot be trusted. You should delivery your packages directly, keeping them in your sole custody to ensure nothing goes amiss until you have handed to your intended recipient.
Obviously, few consider using cash and delivering your own mail and packages to be more "advanced" than banks, credit cards and delivery services. But some do.
For most, the use of an intermediary with the special skills and technology, system monitoring and forensic capabilities for troubleshooting should problems arise is the most advanced way to go. We place trust in banks, credit card companies and FedEx not because they prevent all thefts of cash, prevent all fraud and never lose a package, but because they do a very good job, are cost effective, reliable, easy to use, and when things do go wrong, they have mechanisms in place to resolve them.
If you want a truly advanced e-signature system, we recommend using a proven technology that puts your privacy and data security ahead of making money and growth at all costs, and certainly ahead of requiring retrograde technology. Such an e-signature system can remove a rogue user simply by deactivating his/her account to prevent ongoing problems, not punt the issue by putting the bad actor's certificate into a revocation list and hoping you checked it before, during and after every transaction.
Such an e-signature company likely does not give you freebies to induce you to sign up. Such a company will keep your data encrypted better than you can, while also making it available to you using any of your web-capable devices at any time from any location. Such a company will use advanced digital signature technologies to ensure documents can be verified as authoritative for the foreseeable future. Such a company will allow for performing transactions easily and quickly with billions of people across the world. Such a company will use standards where they make the most sense from a practical perspective to protect your investment and avoid vendor lock-in. Such a company will not keep its technology proprietary and hidden from review. Such a company is unlikely to be built by a committee.
Yozons is such a company.
Don't let words fool you. A truly advanced electronic signature can be had today, and it most certainly does not rely on retrograde PKI.
English author George Orwell wrote all about such government Newspeak in his famous novel, 1984. Committees, governments and big corporations try these FUD tactics (fear, uncertainty and doubt) all the time because they work more often than not. It's your advantage in life to see through the blather.
Public key infrastructure (PKI)
PKI has been around since the early 1970s, a product of British intelligence. It's useful in many scenarios, and the world wide web relies on it for the HTTPS protocol, though even that would work well for most without a PKI requirement.
RSA and other PKI vendors have led "Year of PKI" celebrations at least since 1996. It's been declared "dead" just as many times and such declarations of death are often interwoven with declarations of its grand dominance. Renowned cryptography expert Bruce Schneier provides good insights in his Ten Risks of PKI: What You're not Being Told about Public Key Infrastructure.
There are numerous reports of stolen digital certificates, stolen private keys, hacked certificate authorities, after-the-fact certificate revocation lists, etc., including a long-lived Windows trojan called ZeuS that now makes use of "stolen" digital certificates assigned to Microsoft. Of course, a digital certificate is supposed to be public, so stealing one should have little value whatsoever. I mean, every HTTPS web site gives you it's certificate freely and your browser comes pre-loaded with many "trusted" certificate authorities (if you've never heard of them, how can you trust them?). But PKI relies on a chain of trust, so it's only as trustworthy as its weakest link, and there are innumerable weak links as recently demonstrated by the ZeuS exploit.
Unlike a certificate, if your private key itself is compromised, all bets are off, which is precisely why it's so odd that some large e-signature vendors put their entire customer base at risk by using a single signing key for every document signed by every person. One large vendor just uses a salt+message digest of your document instead of a digital signature even though a simple database update of the document with the newly computed message digest would make the so-called "authoritative copy" a fraud.
Bad security remains the norm at loud companies (i.e. big spenders on marketing and freebies) that demonstrably value profits and market share over quality and customer concern. Say it loudly and often and hope people come to believe it's true. We continue to read about competitors, even those built on a PKI, that don't even encrypt your private documents containing personal and private information when stored, leaving them open to perusal simply by querying for it.
Despite the reality of PKI issues, vendors, EU committees and international standards bodies (how many of you use their "advanced" OSI model of networking rather than the Internet?) continue to claim that you need a PKI in order to have an "advanced" electronic signature. If it weren't so real for millions, the best advice would be to ignore it until it goes away. It's really a shame, too, because the EU has a perfectly good electronic signature law modeled on the U.S. E-Sign Act of 2000. Some just cannot believe that their technobabble isn't required by law and are trying to trick you into thinking you have to be old school in order to be advanced. It's not just the EU either: before the U.S. E-Sign Act, very few e-signatures were performed in the United States because state laws also mandated a PKI.
For e-signatures, PKI just hasn't been workable. The costs of deployment are high. Scaling and interoperability are hard. The issues of trust remain unresolved. Most computers and networks are notoriously insecure. Users are often clueless about such details -- and rightly so. Even so-called secure cards have to be connected to these very computers and networks and be operated by these very users. (Just watch President Clinton look over the shoulder to see the short PIN entered by Prime Minister Ahern and then exchange their "smart" cards. If leaders of nations can't be trusted to do this correctly, you are right to wonder if any other folks will be better at it.)
Most prefer service providers
Would you consider getting rid of banks because they are too insecure? I mean, clearly you should keep your money in a safe in your home and transport it using armed couriers all controlled solely by yourself. Why would you trust an intermediary like a bank to keep your money safe and allow simple transactions by check, ATM, debit card or wire transfer when it doesn't even keep your deposited money in that very bank's vault?
How about credit card companies? Clearly they are not secure, again allowing money to move easily just by entering some numbers into an online store or providing it to other merchants for payment processing.
The post office, FedEx and UPS certainly cannot be trusted. You should delivery your packages directly, keeping them in your sole custody to ensure nothing goes amiss until you have handed to your intended recipient.
Obviously, few consider using cash and delivering your own mail and packages to be more "advanced" than banks, credit cards and delivery services. But some do.
For most, the use of an intermediary with the special skills and technology, system monitoring and forensic capabilities for troubleshooting should problems arise is the most advanced way to go. We place trust in banks, credit card companies and FedEx not because they prevent all thefts of cash, prevent all fraud and never lose a package, but because they do a very good job, are cost effective, reliable, easy to use, and when things do go wrong, they have mechanisms in place to resolve them.
Advanced web-based electronic signatures
If you want a truly advanced e-signature system, we recommend using a proven technology that puts your privacy and data security ahead of making money and growth at all costs, and certainly ahead of requiring retrograde technology. Such an e-signature system can remove a rogue user simply by deactivating his/her account to prevent ongoing problems, not punt the issue by putting the bad actor's certificate into a revocation list and hoping you checked it before, during and after every transaction.
Such an e-signature company likely does not give you freebies to induce you to sign up. Such a company will keep your data encrypted better than you can, while also making it available to you using any of your web-capable devices at any time from any location. Such a company will use advanced digital signature technologies to ensure documents can be verified as authoritative for the foreseeable future. Such a company will allow for performing transactions easily and quickly with billions of people across the world. Such a company will use standards where they make the most sense from a practical perspective to protect your investment and avoid vendor lock-in. Such a company will not keep its technology proprietary and hidden from review. Such a company is unlikely to be built by a committee.
Yozons is such a company.
Don't let words fool you. A truly advanced electronic signature can be had today, and it most certainly does not rely on retrograde PKI.
Friday, April 4, 2014
High volume seasonal hiring made easy, well, easier
For this installment, I'd like to discuss a large merchandising company that does high volume seasonal hiring, mostly to meet the demands of the large retails they service.
During peak hiring, over 500 people on any given day are in some stage of the online hiring process, from initial filling out a job application, to interviewing, through internal approval, store assignment, completing various new employee documents, I-9 and e-Verify, and finally payroll setup. Much of the rest of the year, volumes are lower as they do maintain an ongoing hiring process year-round.
This company's web-based onboarding package of documents consists of over 25 forms and includes the job application, questionnaire, EEO survey, background check authorization, and various government forms like the W-4, I-9 and state tax withholding forms.
A powerful routing capability was custom developed for their hiring process on top of the Yozons e-signature platform. Based on the applicant’s geographical location, the package of documents is assigned to an area manager. The area manager does the initial review and then assigns the package to a specific store manager to determine whether to hire the candidate or not. Alternatively, the area manager can override the area manager step and simply send the hiring package directly to the applicant. Once hired, the package of documents is sent to the employee to complete all of the onboarding paperwork. The package is then routed to the store manager to verify the employee's identity for the Federal Form I-9, and then it's routed to payroll.
With government and legal compliance concerns (i.e. “Failing to comply with Form I-9 requirements” is $110 to $1100 fine per employee -- see http://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/penalties), this customer’s core requirement is to ensure legal compliance, to decrease the time to process all of the hiring paperwork, as well as the ability to search for onboarding packages from the past and to keep up-to-the-minute status of ongoing new hires.
Yozons rapidly built a custom HR onboarding system using our enterprise web service software. This customer has been using their system since 2007, and they have yearly requirements to keep their system modern, useful and up-to-date with HR laws and regulations. With this custom solution they are able to coordinate their hiring with over 100 HR staff spread across a large multi-state region.
During peak hiring, over 500 people on any given day are in some stage of the online hiring process, from initial filling out a job application, to interviewing, through internal approval, store assignment, completing various new employee documents, I-9 and e-Verify, and finally payroll setup. Much of the rest of the year, volumes are lower as they do maintain an ongoing hiring process year-round.
This company's web-based onboarding package of documents consists of over 25 forms and includes the job application, questionnaire, EEO survey, background check authorization, and various government forms like the W-4, I-9 and state tax withholding forms.
A powerful routing capability was custom developed for their hiring process on top of the Yozons e-signature platform. Based on the applicant’s geographical location, the package of documents is assigned to an area manager. The area manager does the initial review and then assigns the package to a specific store manager to determine whether to hire the candidate or not. Alternatively, the area manager can override the area manager step and simply send the hiring package directly to the applicant. Once hired, the package of documents is sent to the employee to complete all of the onboarding paperwork. The package is then routed to the store manager to verify the employee's identity for the Federal Form I-9, and then it's routed to payroll.
With government and legal compliance concerns (i.e. “Failing to comply with Form I-9 requirements” is $110 to $1100 fine per employee -- see http://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/penalties), this customer’s core requirement is to ensure legal compliance, to decrease the time to process all of the hiring paperwork, as well as the ability to search for onboarding packages from the past and to keep up-to-the-minute status of ongoing new hires.
Yozons rapidly built a custom HR onboarding system using our enterprise web service software. This customer has been using their system since 2007, and they have yearly requirements to keep their system modern, useful and up-to-date with HR laws and regulations. With this custom solution they are able to coordinate their hiring with over 100 HR staff spread across a large multi-state region.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Welcome to Enterprise WebApps
Welcome to our new Enterprise WebApps (web applications) blog that will discuss how secure, scalable, modern business web applications are developed.
Previously, large teams of programmers were needed to develop business applications. Some very large and sophisticated applications still are produced this way. But the vast majority of business applications built today are no longer monolithic systems. Such older systems took too long to develop, tended to be hard to use, cost more than was budgeted, and of course were expensive to operate and maintain over the years.
Also, with the advent of web-based computing, businesses started to reduce the need for such big, centralized systems that are cost prohibitive for many and rarely show a good ROI. Theses companies understood that employees, partners and customers are often located throughout the world, and being "in corporate headquarters" was becoming a thing of the past.
Many companies now look to acquire point technologies that solve specific needs rather than the all-encompassing super software of yesteryear. And many of those want web-based solutions, often provided as a service (SaaS), allowing them a lower cost of entry, but also relieving them of the details of software development, maintenance and operations that were overloading internal IT.
Companies like Salesforce.com showed the power of a vertical solution for dealing with CRM.
Yozons Open eSignForms is an enterprise webapp that's both a business transaction execution engine, as well as an application development tool that requires basic HTML expertise, and serves a horizontal market across most industries. Yozons develops point solutions on top for resale, and we also build turnkey solutions for some of our customers, while others build their own systems -- all without traditional software programming expertise needed.
Unlike software of old, though, users of Open eSignForms build their own point solutions that come with enterprise-grade capabilities like scalability, segmentation of users into groups, branding libraries to handle multiple companies/divisions, data encryption, digital signatures for XML and PDFs, HTML documents that render correctly on all devices (PCs, tablets, phones) and don't require special hardware or software to view, electronic signatures for authorization and agreement, and basic workflow to ensure processes run smoothly and no work is lost or misplaced.
We will present the myriad enterprise webapps our customers have built for themselves, as well as those Yozons has built as separate products. As the underlying customer-branded technology for many large and small companies, Yozons is often the most used, but never heard of, technology company out there. Our customers are essentially getting a custom solution to meet their needs quickly at the same price as pre-built enterprise software that never quite fits right (and the cost of modifying them is usually prohibitive) and often takes years to implement.
Nimble businesses simply cannot move that slowly, and there's really no reason to do so.
Previously, large teams of programmers were needed to develop business applications. Some very large and sophisticated applications still are produced this way. But the vast majority of business applications built today are no longer monolithic systems. Such older systems took too long to develop, tended to be hard to use, cost more than was budgeted, and of course were expensive to operate and maintain over the years.
Also, with the advent of web-based computing, businesses started to reduce the need for such big, centralized systems that are cost prohibitive for many and rarely show a good ROI. Theses companies understood that employees, partners and customers are often located throughout the world, and being "in corporate headquarters" was becoming a thing of the past.
Many companies now look to acquire point technologies that solve specific needs rather than the all-encompassing super software of yesteryear. And many of those want web-based solutions, often provided as a service (SaaS), allowing them a lower cost of entry, but also relieving them of the details of software development, maintenance and operations that were overloading internal IT.
Companies like Salesforce.com showed the power of a vertical solution for dealing with CRM.
Yozons Open eSignForms is an enterprise webapp that's both a business transaction execution engine, as well as an application development tool that requires basic HTML expertise, and serves a horizontal market across most industries. Yozons develops point solutions on top for resale, and we also build turnkey solutions for some of our customers, while others build their own systems -- all without traditional software programming expertise needed.
Unlike software of old, though, users of Open eSignForms build their own point solutions that come with enterprise-grade capabilities like scalability, segmentation of users into groups, branding libraries to handle multiple companies/divisions, data encryption, digital signatures for XML and PDFs, HTML documents that render correctly on all devices (PCs, tablets, phones) and don't require special hardware or software to view, electronic signatures for authorization and agreement, and basic workflow to ensure processes run smoothly and no work is lost or misplaced.
We will present the myriad enterprise webapps our customers have built for themselves, as well as those Yozons has built as separate products. As the underlying customer-branded technology for many large and small companies, Yozons is often the most used, but never heard of, technology company out there. Our customers are essentially getting a custom solution to meet their needs quickly at the same price as pre-built enterprise software that never quite fits right (and the cost of modifying them is usually prohibitive) and often takes years to implement.
Nimble businesses simply cannot move that slowly, and there's really no reason to do so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)