Nok Nok Labs

Nok Nok Labs INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in Palo Alto with Ramesh at Nok Nok labs. Hi Ramesh, how are you  and what do you do?Ramesh: Hi Martin, how are you doing?Martin: Awesome. What do you do?Ramesh: We are a company which is focusing on fixing the cyber security problem. As you know, strong authentication in cyber security is still focused on user ID’s and passwords. And if you see the latest online attacks that are happening in the industry, most of them are related to doing a cyber site attack and stealing all bunch of passwords from various users and those passwords being used at some other sites to commit fraud in financial markets and in healthcare markets. And these markets are pretty security and privacy centric. If we still are laying on user ID’s and password and we’re all vulnerable and with respect to what’s happening in the industry right now unlike earlier days when we were using internet for information access, now internet is being used for lifestyle management . And if we’re still trying to build our security base off user ID’s and passwords which are vulnerable and also unlike earlier, where we have used one or two accounts. Nowadays, we have fifteen to twenty accounts each, for  select works, banks, financial organization, online site. And it is becoming very difficult to keep track passwords and so we normally use two or three passwords to make our lives simple. But when a hacker goes to a server site and harvest a whole bunch of passwords, he will reuse on other financial institution and conduct transaction like you and do the fraud.So what we focus on is actually how do we do security without actually using user ID’s and passwords, how do we eliminate passwords.  And we focus on actually selling servers which we do online security without using passwords. So Nok Nok has two components to it; Nok Nok builds servers on a product called FIDO, faster identity online. Faster Identity online is an alliance, an open standing building committee body that was actually founded by me also. We, Nok Nok labs, have donated IP to the alliance. Alliance, now in 2009, has started to work, but we openly went out with FIDO alliance during Arisi conference in 2013, with six founding members in FIDO alliance. And today, 2015, we are about to 260 close to 250 companies in the alliance who actually endorse the protocols and contribute to the protocol. So that alliance, FIDO alliance is a non-profit organization. The purpose of the alliance is primarily to define the specs, and it wants the spec   working with the  global industry. Nok Nok is the first implementer of the protocol. There are two protocols in Fido; one is called UAF, the other one is called U2F. Nok Nok focus on UAF, UAF protocol, United Amitigation Framework. So the two entities that I wasâ€"FIDO alliance, I was one of three founders were FIDO alliance. But it was initiated by me and a other gentlemen name   Michael Ballot, he started Paypal and also another gent lemen by another gentleman named Taho Elgomarto he was the inland professor so we started FIDO alliance and in 2011 I founded Nok Nok Labs.Martin: Ok, interesting. And what is your background actually?Ramesh: My background is engineering electronics and then I came to this country working for IBM as an consultant, primarily in the cyber security space. And 1995 I started my first services company and that used to focus on taking the legacy mainframe based information system and migrating them to   internet and web technologies.Martin: What made you become an entrepreneur?Ramesh: Just like any other middle class family in India I came here after my studies and being entrepreneur and wanting to do something unique, wanting to do something different. We just started off, I found an opportunity of working in the mainframe space primarily and internet technology. So I found an opportunity to actually take some of those mainframe base application and move them to web based technology; fou nd an opportunity took that opportunity and formed by first web based company. And that company which was a resource company actually funded my second company which was a product company. And during those days I also was a founding member  of a company which did those video streaming on the web in 1998-1999 when people were doing graphics on the web we went and did the video streaming on the web. Actually we were one of the first two companies which did that and that company was acquired by Akamine. And then I also founded another  company which did the messaging on the cell phone like emails and other stuff. So I was one of the first few guys who did the email on the cell phone.And then I joined  Phoenix technologies as a senior Vice President during the tenure I was also a part of the city council of the federal government, advising on cyber security and stuff. And then I joined a company which was kind of struggling  called Validity Sensor which is a finger printing company. I w as drove the companys product strategy and market strategy and tried to turn the company around and that company became profitable in four years. That company also got acquired Synoptic.It was during those days what I found was the number of online attacks that were happening, the financial fraud that happening. And also we have interestingly moved from PC based community to a cell phone based community where screens are much smaller and then you want to access stuff from cell phone, such as touch screen user ID’s and passport is not always good, its not convenient, its not easy. And incidentally I was also CTO of  a fingerprint sensor company which actually identifies you without you actually entering   a user ID and password. I was actually trying to see how we increase the utility of fingerprint and that’s when I ran into Michael Ballot, he started Paypal. We started discussing, here is a big fraud that’s happening in the industry, which is a business pain and here is human pain where people are struggling to enter user ID and passwords, entering multiple passwords, a number of accounts is increasing. As long as you try to do security on the internet with the primary infrastructure still base on user ID and password, you’re actually not treating the disease, you’re treating the symptom.You really need to fix the problem, fix the disease. And we actually took a step back and if we were to do cyber security online litigation and on a clean slate, how do you do that. So that’s when I actually, with my team wrote the protocol which were the concepts of protocols based on which FIDO was formed. And then we donated that IP to FIDO alliance and then how my fifth company Nok Nok Labs got started and until now we raised about fifty million dollars with the company, Nok Nok Labs.The very work we do, FIDO alliance of integration, eliminates the passwords; the user doesn’t have to remember the passwords user name, the user doesn’t have to type the passw ord. Sever doesn’t know their password, and the more user authenticates himself to device, the device then authenticate back to me, servers.BUSINESS MODEL OF NOK NOK LABSMartin: But how does it authenticate? Just walk me through. Imagine, I am a normal customer an individual, and I want to authenticize, how does that work for example with a bank?Ramesh: So today, if you want to try to log on to the bank you use your user ID and password and that package gets send to the server. And as you are typing and sending you are vulnerable to many different attacks, it could be fishing attack, it could be manageable attacks or it could be dictionary attack or somebody can simply attack servers and get your credentials. In the new model, if you see Apple’s iPhone, iPhone 5 iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy X 5 and S6, the  fingerprints facial recognition technologies is highly scaling, it’s becoming mainstream right now. I mean earlier we had cost issues and quality issues. Now  those things ar e coming together where now fingerprinting, iris technology, and facial technology is mature and it is deployable in mass scale and the cost have also comes down dramatically and thanks to iPhone embracing fingerprinting and that made fingerprinting mainstream technology now.Martin: But does that mean you’re mainly focusing on mobile security or is it also that you’re doing this for desktop?Ramesh: Same infrastructure  can be also be used by both PC, cell phone and tablet. So the way it works, you authenticate yourself to device using your fingerprint and facial recognition technology and something. And then there is a process if you are a user of the bank currently using user ID and password, next time that you have a FIDO enabled  phone or FIDO enabled PC you go log on using your password, servers then can recognize that   you have a FIDO component infrastructure device and then it walks you through a registration process.That registration process is simple: you look into the camera, you speak a phrase, touch the sensor, a single touch, a single phrase, or a single blink; any of these things, just this. You do that, and during that period there will be some typographic exchange that happening between the client and the servers. And the typographic signatures are generated on the client and sent to the server. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but there is a public and private key kind of security infrastructure. The private key is generated on the client and the public key is sent to the servers for that user for that device. From that moment onward, any authentication that happen between the servers and the client is based on that cryptographic signature on a challenge response basis. So next time when you want a authentication to be used, a service or a bank you simply go to the bank site and then you touch the finger, look into the camera for that single phase, then the response for the challenge that servers process for the device gets gen erated and that’s how you get authenticated.Martin: Is there a way to gain this? For example, imagine I would know that this mobile phone is attached to Ramesh, and by the way I would have a photo of Ramesh which I would put in front of the camera. This might be used for the facial recognition, voice, maybe something else.Ramesh: So the security is always an arms race. The current problem and security addressing security problem also depends on what kind of security problem you’re interested. Today, if you see majority of the attacks happening on network  cyber security. In most of them, the hackers don’t have motivation to attack one person. What they want to do is go back to sites like Yahoo, LinkedIn, Gmail. Go to a site where they can get hundred of millions of user accounts eBay attack.Martin: Yeah, right.Ramesh: So when you have user IDs and passwords at that scale, then what they want is much bigger. In FIDO, it has to be targeted attack that hacker really wants to att ack. You dont only have to have my picture or my fingerprint but you also have to have steal my device.Martin: I mean I totally understand that it makes it makes the authentication process safer â€" totally understood.Ramesh: Safer, simpler.Martin: Imagine, I want to really hack a company. Maybe then I wouldn’t try to hack via the authentication, but then I would just would like to hack the database, there are the companies that will still have the personally identifiable information.Ramesh: In the current scenario, you’re right, hackers are motivated to hack the server site not the device. When you’re attacking the server site in the older model you get user ID and password. So it’s easy. In the new model, when you attack the server, all you only get is a bunch of public keys. You wont be able to do any thing with that. You got to have private keys.Martin: Oh, good.Ramesh: The private key is stored on the client side. So you are actually turning the authentication process u pside down. You’re not providing a single point of attack for somebody in remote places like press releases of the last year, where a single hacker group has 1.2 billion account information from United States and all over the globe. 1.2 billion accounts that’s how they harvest the whole thing. In this model, when they go and try to steal secrets from the server, they are no secrets on the servers anymore. All they have are public keys, you won’t be able too much with public keys.Martin: Ramesh, what are the major customers of Nok Nok Labs.Ramesh: So like I was mentioning earlier, the FIDO protocol has two components. There needs to be a client component, there needs to be a server. So unless there is a client, you dont have a business for the server side. Nok Nok makes money selling servers. Our first deployment was with Paypal. Paypal has used Nok Nok servers and we worked with Samsung where we actually put the FIDO clients on the mobile phones of Galaxies S5 and Galaxies S6. Now the next deployment of FIDO of Nok Nok servers is with be in Alipay in China, where again we provide the same servers to them, as Samsung phones and other phones that they chose to use where they deployed FIDO, they can use it. The latest one that we deployed  is Docomo entity.Martin: Who is that?Ramesh: Docomo in Japan. That is the biggest carrier in Japan. They have close to 65 million subscribers. Docomo has embraced FIDO at one go. The entire Docomo ID infrastructure now does not use password, uses Nok Nok severs; and completely eliminates password. If you are using Docomo services, Docomo phones now they are no password. You simply either look into the camera. They have actually deployed a fingerprint. They have actually deployed an iris scanning. It works seamlessly. We never had an issue- we deployed it in May. These are the first three major customers we started to work with. As you can see its not normal for a start up company to go after companies like Docomo, Paypal and Alipay as their first customers.Martin:  Definitely.Ramesh: And also deploy at a scale at that we deploy; at very high consumer scale.Martin: And how is the revenue model working?Ramesh: So like I was mentioning earlier. Client is free, we initially with the first version of FIDO we did the clients ourselves, but Microsoft is part of FIDO alliance now and they’ve actually announced recently that Windows 10 will have FIDO infrastructure in them. SnapDragon and Qualcom have announced that they embrace FIDO. Armies buy FIDO. You can go to FIDO Alliance.org and see the members. You can see how many members there are there.Now, Nok Nok has also enabled iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 to use FIDO infrastructure and we have support for that. We, basically, as we are going we expect the client side to be embraced by the operating system people, like Microsoft, Google, Apple kind of people. And we basically focus on selling servers. We have a multi-factor authentication server that we sell to th e people, we deploy to people. We dont host servers, we sell servers, its an enterprise sale.  And if you’re Docomo, you’re a financial institution if you’re bank of Germany, what you simply do is buy the server from us, use our SDK to deploy to your mobile app, internet browser plugin and you’re ready to go.Martin: Why did you choose the selling mode only and not as SAP for example doing sales and service model?Ramesh: We are actually a product company just like SAP company. The only difference is a difference between conventional ERP companies and us it that ERP is full application, and we are an infrastructure business. We don’t sell application, we sell infrastructure.Our server will have to go and integrate with some of the existing application like for instance SAP can deploy our server. SAP has various kind of application that they sell like digital workflow, process management,  supply chain. They are various things that they sell. All of them currently use the var ious user IDs and passwords to get in. SAP can choose to embrace FIDO and then buy a Nok Nok sever. And now all servers can be password free.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM RAMESH In Palo Alto (CA), we meet founder and FIDO Visionary of Nok Nok Labs, Ramesh Kesanupalli. Ramesh talks about his story how he came up with the idea and founded Nok Nok Labs, how the current business model works, as well as he provides some advice for young entrepreneurs.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in Palo Alto with Ramesh at Nok Nok labs. Hi Ramesh, how are you  and what do you do?Ramesh: Hi Martin, how are you doing?Martin: Awesome. What do you do?Ramesh: We are a company which is focusing on fixing the cyber security problem. As you know, strong authentication in cyber security is still focused on user ID’s and passwords. And if you see the latest online attacks that are happening in the industry, most of them are related to doing a cyber site attack and stealing all bunch of passwords from various users and those passwords being used at some other sites to commit fraud in financial markets and in healthcare markets. And these markets are pretty security and privacy cen tric. If we still are laying on user ID’s and password and we’re all vulnerable and with respect to what’s happening in the industry right now unlike earlier days when we were using internet for information access, now internet is being used for lifestyle management. And if we’re still trying to build our security base off user ID’s and passwords which are vulnerable and also unlike earlier, where we have used one or two accounts. Nowadays, we have fifteen to twenty accounts each, for  select works, banks, financial organization, online site. And it is becoming very difficult to keep track passwords and so we normally use two or three passwords to make our lives simple. But when a hacker goes to a server site and harvest a whole bunch of passwords, he will reuse on other financial institution and conduct transaction like you and do the fraud.So what we focus on is actually how do we do security without actually using user ID’s and passwords, how do we eliminate passwords .  And we focus on actually selling servers which we do online security without using passwords. So Nok Nok has two components to it; Nok Nok builds servers on a product called FIDO, faster identity online. Faster Identity online is an alliance, an open standing building committee body that was actually founded by me also. We, Nok Nok labs, have donated IP to the alliance. Alliance, now in 2009, has started to work, but we openly went out with FIDO alliance during Arisi conference in 2013, with six founding members in FIDO alliance. And today, 2015, we are about to 260 close to 250 companies in the alliance who actually endorse the protocols and contribute to the protocol. So that alliance, FIDO alliance is a non-profit organization. The purpose of the alliance is primarily to define the specs, and it wants the spec   working with the  global industry. Nok Nok is the first implementer of the protocol. There are two protocols in Fido; one is called UAF, the other one is called U2F. N ok Nok focus on UAF, UAF protocol, United Amitigation Framework. So the two entities that I wasâ€"FIDO alliance, I was one of three founders were FIDO alliance. But it was initiated by me and a other gentlemen name   Michael Ballot, he started Paypal and also another gentlemen by another gentleman named Taho Elgomarto he was the inland professor so we started FIDO alliance and in 2011 I founded Nok Nok Labs.Martin: Ok, interesting. And what is your background actually?Ramesh: My background is engineering electronics and then I came to this country working for IBM as an consultant, primarily in the cyber security space. And 1995 I started my first services company and that used to focus on taking the legacy mainframe based information system and migrating them to   internet and web technologies.Martin: What made you become an entrepreneur?Ramesh: Just like any other middle class family in India I came here after my studies and being entrepreneur and wanting to do something unique, wa nting to do something different. We just started off, I found an opportunity of working in the mainframe space primarily and internet technology. So I found an opportunity to actually take some of those mainframe base application and move them to web based technology; found an opportunity took that opportunity and formed by first web based company. And that company which was a resource company actually funded my second company which was a product company. And during those days I also was a founding member  of a company which did those video streaming on the web in 1998-1999 when people were doing graphics on the web we went and did the video streaming on the web. Actually we were one of the first two companies which did that and that company was acquired by Akamine. And then I also founded another  company which did the messaging on the cell phone like emails and other stuff. So I was one of the first few guys who did the email on the cell phone.And then I joined  Phoenix technolog ies as a senior Vice President during the tenure I was also a part of the city council of the federal government, advising on cyber security and stuff. And then I joined a company which was kind of struggling  called Validity Sensor which is a finger printing company. I was drove the companys product strategy and market strategy and tried to turn the company around and that company became profitable in four years. That company also got acquired Synoptic.It was during those days what I found was the number of online attacks that were happening, the financial fraud that happening. And also we have interestingly moved from PC based community to a cell phone based community where screens are much smaller and then you want to access stuff from cell phone, such as touch screen user ID’s and passport is not always good, its not convenient, its not easy. And incidentally I was also CTO of  a fingerprint sensor company which actually identifies you without you actually entering   a user ID and password. I was actually trying to see how we increase the utility of fingerprint and that’s when I ran into Michael Ballot, he started Paypal. We started discussing, here is a big fraud that’s happening in the industry, which is a business pain and here is human pain where people are struggling to enter user ID and passwords, entering multiple passwords, a number of accounts is increasing. As long as you try to do security on the internet with the primary infrastructure still base on user ID and password, you’re actually not treating the disease, you’re treating the symptom.You really need to fix the problem, fix the disease. And we actually took a step back and if we were to do cyber security online litigation and on a clean slate, how do you do that. So that’s when I actually, with my team wrote the protocol which were the concepts of protocols based on which FIDO was formed. And then we donated that IP to FIDO alliance and then how my fifth company Nok Nok Labs go t started and until now we raised about fifty million dollars with the company, Nok Nok Labs.The very work we do, FIDO alliance of integration, eliminates the passwords; the user doesn’t have to remember the passwords user name, the user doesn’t have to type the password. Sever doesn’t know their password, and the more user authenticates himself to device, the device then authenticate back to me, servers.BUSINESS MODEL OF NOK NOK LABSMartin: But how does it authenticate? Just walk me through. Imagine, I am a normal customer an individual, and I want to authenticize, how does that work for example with a bank?Ramesh: So today, if you want to try to log on to the bank you use your user ID and password and that package gets send to the server. And as you are typing and sending you are vulnerable to many different attacks, it could be fishing attack, it could be manageable attacks or it could be dictionary attack or somebody can simply attack servers and get your credentials. In t he new model, if you see Apple’s iPhone, iPhone 5 iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy X 5 and S6, the  fingerprints facial recognition technologies is highly scaling, it’s becoming mainstream right now. I mean earlier we had cost issues and quality issues. Now  those things are coming together where now fingerprinting, iris technology, and facial technology is mature and it is deployable in mass scale and the cost have also comes down dramatically and thanks to iPhone embracing fingerprinting and that made fingerprinting mainstream technology now.Martin: But does that mean you’re mainly focusing on mobile security or is it also that you’re doing this for desktop?Ramesh: Same infrastructure  can be also be used by both PC, cell phone and tablet. So the way it works, you authenticate yourself to device using your fingerprint and facial recognition technology and something. And then there is a process if you are a user of the bank currently using user ID and password, next time that you have a FIDO enabled  phone or FIDO enabled PC you go log on using your password, servers then can recognize that   you have a FIDO component infrastructure device and then it walks you through a registration process.That registration process is simple: you look into the camera, you speak a phrase, touch the sensor, a single touch, a single phrase, or a single blink; any of these things, just this. You do that, and during that period there will be some typographic exchange that happening between the client and the servers. And the typographic signatures are generated on the client and sent to the server. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but there is a public and private key kind of security infrastructure. The private key is generated on the client and the public key is sent to the servers for that user for that device. From that moment onward, any authentication that happen between the servers and the client is based on that cryptographic signature on a challenge respon se basis. So next time when you want a authentication to be used, a service or a bank you simply go to the bank site and then you touch the finger, look into the camera for that single phase, then the response for the challenge that servers process for the device gets generated and that’s how you get authenticated.Martin: Is there a way to gain this? For example, imagine I would know that this mobile phone is attached to Ramesh, and by the way I would have a photo of Ramesh which I would put in front of the camera. This might be used for the facial recognition, voice, maybe something else.Ramesh: So the security is always an arms race. The current problem and security addressing security problem also depends on what kind of security problem you’re interested. Today, if you see majority of the attacks happening on network  cyber security. In most of them, the hackers don’t have motivation to attack one person. What they want to do is go back to sites like Yahoo, LinkedIn, Gmail . Go to a site where they can get hundred of millions of user accounts eBay attack.Martin: Yeah, right.Ramesh: So when you have user IDs and passwords at that scale, then what they want is much bigger. In FIDO, it has to be targeted attack that hacker really wants to attack. You dont only have to have my picture or my fingerprint but you also have to have steal my device.Martin: I mean I totally understand that it makes it makes the authentication process safer â€" totally understood.Ramesh: Safer, simpler.Martin: Imagine, I want to really hack a company. Maybe then I wouldn’t try to hack via the authentication, but then I would just would like to hack the database, there are the companies that will still have the personally identifiable information.Ramesh: In the current scenario, you’re right, hackers are motivated to hack the server site not the device. When you’re attacking the server site in the older model you get user ID and password. So it’s easy. In the new model, when you attack the server, all you only get is a bunch of public keys. You wont be able to do any thing with that. You got to have private keys.Martin: Oh, good.Ramesh: The private key is stored on the client side. So you are actually turning the authentication process upside down. You’re not providing a single point of attack for somebody in remote places like press releases of the last year, where a single hacker group has 1.2 billion account information from United States and all over the globe. 1.2 billion accounts that’s how they harvest the whole thing. In this model, when they go and try to steal secrets from the server, they are no secrets on the servers anymore. All they have are public keys, you won’t be able too much with public keys.Martin: Ramesh, what are the major customers of Nok Nok Labs.Ramesh: So like I was mentioning earlier, the FIDO protocol has two components. There needs to be a client component, there needs to be a server. So unless there is a client, you dont have a business for the server side. Nok Nok makes money selling servers. Our first deployment was with Paypal. Paypal has used Nok Nok servers and we worked with Samsung where we actually put the FIDO clients on the mobile phones of Galaxies S5 and Galaxies S6. Now the next deployment of FIDO of Nok Nok servers is with be in Alipay in China, where again we provide the same servers to them, as Samsung phones and other phones that they chose to use where they deployed FIDO, they can use it. The latest one that we deployed  is Docomo entity.Martin: Who is that?Ramesh: Docomo in Japan. That is the biggest carrier in Japan. They have close to 65 million subscribers. Docomo has embraced FIDO at one go. The entire Docomo ID infrastructure now does not use password, uses Nok Nok severs; and completely eliminates password. If you are using Docomo services, Docomo phones now they are no password. You simply either look into the camera. They have actually deployed a fingerprint. The y have actually deployed an iris scanning. It works seamlessly. We never had an issue- we deployed it in May. These are the first three major customers we started to work with. As you can see its not normal for a start up company to go after companies like Docomo, Paypal and Alipay as their first customers.Martin:  Definitely.Ramesh: And also deploy at a scale at that we deploy; at very high consumer scale.Martin: And how is the revenue model working?Ramesh: So like I was mentioning earlier. Client is free, we initially with the first version of FIDO we did the clients ourselves, but Microsoft is part of FIDO alliance now and they’ve actually announced recently that Windows 10 will have FIDO infrastructure in them. SnapDragon and Qualcom have announced that they embrace FIDO. Armies buy FIDO. You can go to FIDO Alliance.org and see the members. You can see how many members there are there.Now, Nok Nok has also enabled iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 to use FIDO infrastructure and we have su pport for that. We, basically, as we are going we expect the client side to be embraced by the operating system people, like Microsoft, Google, Apple kind of people. And we basically focus on selling servers. We have a multi-factor authentication server that we sell to the people, we deploy to people. We dont host servers, we sell servers, its an enterprise sale.  And if you’re Docomo, you’re a financial institution if you’re bank of Germany, what you simply do is buy the server from us, use our SDK to deploy to your mobile app, internet browser plugin and you’re ready to go.Martin: Why did you choose the selling mode only and not as SAP for example doing sales and service model?Ramesh: We are actually a product company just like SAP company. The only difference is a difference between conventional ERP companies and us it that ERP is full application, and we are an infrastructure business. We don’t sell application, we sell infrastructure.Our server will have to go and int egrate with some of the existing application like for instance SAP can deploy our server. SAP has various kind of application that they sell like digital workflow, process management,  supply chain. They are various things that they sell. All of them currently use the various user IDs and passwords to get in. SAP can choose to embrace FIDO and then buy a Nok Nok sever. And now all servers can be password free.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM RAMESHMartin: Ramesh, imagine a child comes to you, a younger one like 15, 16 and wants to start a company but doesnt know whether he should do it or what he should care for. What is your advice you would share with him?Ramesh. At anytime any opportunity or any business gets nurtured of pain. If you should able to identify either business pain or human pain and you have a solution for that; theres the starting point. People, don’t go to CVS and Walgreens to buy vitamins, they go to buy painkillers. When there is a pain, people want to address it   immediately. If there is a vitamin  they don’t go there, that’s not priority.So when you want to start a company, first you need to know, you don’t necessarily need to know details, you don’t necessarily need to know how to fix it, but you should be able to know that there is a pain. Coming back to the pain point, it has to be able to fix the human pain or it has to be able to fix the  business pain. If it can fix either one of them like  for instance security. When security was a pain, people recognized it. You have, people seriously talking scamming, online scamming, money and password scamming, smart cards scamming, all kinds of things. That actually complicates the users experience but it solves the business pain.Martin:   and then you have trade off.Ramesh: That’s the trade off. What FIDO does is conventionally. Security means, more security means unusable; unusable in the sense of difficult to use. If you want to make sure that I’m strong, I keep on asking more and more question. What is your dog name in 1972? This is the kind of thing they will ask in a financial institution. They will ask your social security number and they will ask what is your childhood best friend’s name. These are all passwords, you keep up adding the staff.So what it means by that if I really want to assert that’s who you are then I ask more questions, put you through so much pain. What Nok Nok and FIDO do is we provide more security at the same time make it very very usable. For me on an iPhone, typing a password is much more difficult than just doing this and done. So what we do is actually, we increase security and also make it extremely usable that’s why I keep throwing in the word a single touch, or a single phrase or a single blink. We make it stronger, at the same time extremely usable.Martin: What is, what would you say to the young person if he says actually I cannot identify a problem worth solving?Ramesh: Then there is no company to be built. You got to know what you’re solving. If you are trying to do something without solving a problem, then there is no company there. Even if you want to start a nonprofit / charitable organization its still solves some problem which is helping people.Martin: Thank you so much, Ramesh, for your time.Ramesh: Sure, no problem.Martin: And next time when you really want to start a company, don’t just start a company, focus on a problem and really identify that is the big problem that is worth solving  and if you don’t find a problem just dont start a new company, work your way through and maybe over the time you will find a problem that is worth solving.Ramesh: That’s almost how all other things get started. Unless you go through the pain, you won’t know the problem. I would strongly recommend to people to actually work at some places if they don’t have any idea like probably a big company like Dell was started in Utah Austin by Michael  Dell where he saw people needed computer as diffi cult to go out and get them started online. So it doesn’t have to be that you have to work you don’t have to work. You just have to feel the pain. If you see the pain and that pain is not be unique to you, it should be a general pain, and you’re fixing general pain then you have a company to start with.Martin: Great! Thanks you so much and good luck with Nok Nok Labs.Ramesh: No problem. Thank you so much.

ROMANS HEIRS TO GREEK AND HELLENISTIC CIVILIZATION

IN WHAT WAYS WERE THE ROMANS HEIRS TO GREEK AND HELLENISTIC CIVILIZATION? The Hellenistic civilization marked an important time in Greek culture. This was the period between 323 and 31 BC, at one point the Greek society changed from being withdrawn and localized to an aggressive multinational, unprotected, and eager culture that infused together southwest Asia and eastern Mediterranean. The Hellenistic world involved many different people but the Greeks’ thinking and way of life influenced most of the matters.1 Every aspect related to culture followed the beliefs of the Greeks and this led to the Greek language becoming established, as the official language of this area. The following arguments are centralized around†¦show more content†¦Moreover, the law did not allow women to hold office, but the men who held offices were allowed to seek counsel of their wives and this could only be done in private. Conversely, equality of men and women was more in the Roman society than it had been in the Greek culture. Professor Roy Mathews and Dewitt Platt centralized their arguments around political humanities of the western world, and around the period for the Hellenistic civilization. This is when the institutions and culture of other nations interacted with the Greek’s in order to create a multicultural and varied civilization. From their definition, this would seem to suggest that Rome should not be counted as Hellenistic civilization because of the controversial time lines. Nonetheless, Rome was situated in the ideal geographical location, which naturally created a varied and multicultural civilization due to its expansion and methods of conquering people. This explanation indicates that Rome was an heir to Hellenistic civilization even though it does not fit according to the definition given by Professor Mathews and Platt. Professor Noble, on the other hand, explains how the fall of the Roman Empire led to the rising of three great civilizations of, the Byzantine Empire, medieval Eur ope, and the Islamic caliphate.8 Professor NobleShow MoreRelatedEssay on the Role of Women in Ancient Greece14417 Words   |  58 Pagespolitically inï ¬â€šuential that ancient scholars blamed them for Sparta’s decline as a major power. And this was not simply another example of the enlightenment for which ancient Greece is famous: By most measures, Sparta was the least enlightened of the many Greek city–states.2 The most democratic city–state, and the source of the greatest art, philosophy, and so forth, was Athens, where women were not allowed to own property, received little education, and faced severe restrictions on their ability to move

Motives of Adolf Hitler in Audens Epitaph on a Tyrant...

Adolf Hitler was a very powerful man, and had a disturbing vision of how the world should be. W.H. Auden was interested in Adolf Hitler, and this interest can be seen in Auden’s poetry. September 1, 1939 and Epitaph on a Tyrant are two poems in which Auden scrutinizes Hitler’s actions. Auden uses symbolism in these two poems to illustrate the different aspects of Hitler’s life and actions. To begin with, Epitaph on a Tyrant personified Hitler’s obsession with â€Å"perfection of a kind.† The obsession with â€Å"perfection† that Hitler held and the dream of a world where blonde hair and blue eyes ruled upset Auden. To attempt genocide on all non-Aryan races was an atrocity and Epitaph on a Tyrant embodied Auden’s emotions of the ethnic cleansing†¦show more content†¦With the army he had raised, Hitler was able to invade Poland on September 1, 1939 and instigate the largest scale war to date. Speaking of September 1, 1939, the poem September 1, 1939 sheds a lot of light on Hitler’s regime. September 1, 1939 gives insightful knowledge stating, â€Å"From Luther until now / That has driven a culture mad.† This sums up the reason that could explain why Hitler was obsessed with the Aryan race. Lutheran is a religion that is prevalent in most of Germany. The founder, Martin Luther, was anti-Semitic. For this reason, many Germans were brought up to be anti-Semitic. Martin Luther’s principles no doubt had a large influence on the German people, especially the Nazis. September 1, 1939 gave reasons as to why the Nazis and Hitler held such hatred towards minority groups. September 1, 1939 also questions Hitler’s past and shows how parenting may have had a large effect on Hitler’s future actions. To understand Hitler’s past, one must â€Å"find what occurred at Linz.† Hitler grew up in the town of Linz, which is in Austria. His father frequently beat him when he was g rowing up and denied Adolf the right to follow Adolf’s dream and become an artist. During the war, Hitler turned Linz into an artillery practice field and blew it to smithereens.

Auto Biography Free Essays

was born and brought up in Houston, Texas. Ours is a family of four with my parents, me and my younger brother. The schooling years of my life were toughest. We will write a custom essay sample on Auto Biography or any similar topic only for you Order Now I struggled a lot in my studies. The standardized procedure of education never interested me. I was an average student throughout my academic life. Extra-curricular activities like sports, drawing, crafts, etc. were my favorite things. I just remember that it was the second semester of 8th grade when I stood first in class. However, it didn’t serve any purpose in motivating me to take up studies seriously. I enjoyed understanding the concepts more than just memorizing ready-made notes. After completion of my schooling and college in the science stream, I chose to become a painter. It was a weird decision taken by me at that time. Today, however, I don’t regret it at all. My career in painting began a smoothly and I was more than happy to grab the right opportunity for which I was waiting so long. Today, I am happy with my life and enjoy it to the fullest. The positive attitude to face hardships brought out the best in me. Today I am looking forward to face the challenges of life in a positive manner. The content presented in the example above gives only a rough idea of how an autobiography should start; one can use a similar write up as an example of autobiography for college projects. Writing an autobiography is a huge effort and requires patience to put the facts and experiences in a proper manner. Autobiographies are detailed accounts of a person’s life and should be written with care and responsibility. The autobiography sample provided in the article above provides an idea about how to write about yourself in an interesting manner. Autobiographies are detailed accounts of our lives which help in remembering the happy and sad moments as well. One can draw inspiration from the tough times of the past and move on in life with a positive attitude. Read more at Buzzle: http://www. buzzle. com/articles/autobiography-sample. html How to cite Auto Biography, Essay examples

Future of VoIP Technology Essay Example For Students

Future of VoIP Technology Essay Future of VoIP TechnologyVoIP is a relatively new technology and so the benefits are just beginning to be realized. VoIP technology has the ability to completely change the telephone industry as we know it. Big changes are in store for the way we use telephones and this section will address some of the changes to expect. Obstacles still stand in the way of progression and there are problems that need to be addressed before this technology can take over. Individuals have some great things to look forward to. Many already communicate over the internet for free (not including ISP cost) in a simple fashion by chat rooms, instant messaging, and email. Some are already using VoIP to replace their current telephone provider due to the lower costs available. Almost everyone in the United States has a cell phone that connects wirelessly to cellular networks located in nearly every city. Wireless internet is becoming rapidly mainstream now and this offers new opportunity for VoIP technology. N ew pocket PC phones are being developed to incorporate support for Wi-Fi as well as cellular networks. These phones will be able to switch from the users Wi-Fi connection to cellular networks and visa versa on the fly. Currently phone calls are directed to a location, but in the future phone calls will be directed to a person. Phone service will switch totally to VoIP once Wi-Fi networks are available to the extent of current cellular networks. Businesses are already currently reaping the benefits of VoIP because of savings in service charges. The technology offers far more than cost savings especially for the business world. Companies can get multiple locations serviced and communicate to each of the locations as if they were all located in the same building; with only an extension number. Digital music can be uploaded to a server and replayed for calls that are on hold. Eventually each employee will be able to use their PDA cell phone for both business and personal calls. The phone will connect to the Wi-Fi network in the building and all calls will be forwarded to the IP address of that phone. More than half of network managers from organizations with 500 or more employees plan to implement VoIP products or services during the next year. (VoIPWatch.com) Businesses have some great opportunities to gain from switching to VoIP and should start to look and determine whether it is right for them. One of the largest obstacles VoIP needs to overcome is the issue of security. Just taking a look into the email of any person can show why this is the case. Spam is rampant in email and VoIP phones would be subject to the same spam problems. Scripts could be written to call numbers and speak or play the ad on the users cell phone. This could wreak havoc without proper laws and measures implemented to prevent this. There is also the issue of hackers gaining access to calls over the Internet. VoIP devices such as IP phones, Call Manager, Gateways, and Proxy servers inherit the same vulnerabilities of the operating system or firmware they run on top of. (Intrusion Prevention) This means that VoIP communications can be compromised based on flaws in the operating system that running the application. There are many things to overcome before VoIP can become the standard, but the future looks very bright. Intrusion Prevention: The Future of VoIP Security. 2004. TippingPoint Technologies, Inc. Retrieved 7 August 2005 http://www.infosectoday.com/Articles/VoIP%20Security.pdfVoIP Company News. 2000. VoIPWatch. Retrieved 7 August 2005 http://www.voipwatch.com/article.php3?sid=128

Net Present Value and Fiat free essay sample

Team members: Inaki aizbitarte, Urko Ortega, Davide Rotta, Simone Zou, Pasquale Reitano INTRODUCTION The company that we have decided to consider for this analysis is the Italian factory Fiat spa. Fiat is a global group with a clear focus in the automobile sector. Through its various businesses, it designs, produces and sells automobiles and related components and production systems. Fiat was one of the founders of the European car industry and today, as a result of its partnership with Chrysler, has a manufacturing and commercial base of sufficient scale to compete as a global automaker. The Fiat group after the entered in the American market with the acquisition of the quota of majority of Crysler is found again of forehead, over that to a new market, also to a new coin with all those that can be the risks over how commercial also those financial. Nevertheless, right now, the exchange rate between these two currencies is 1 euro =1. We will write a custom essay sample on Net Present Value and Fiat or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 118 dollars so in order to make easier the case we will use 1. 31 to round it up. The politics of the Group related to the management of the risk of change foresee, as a rule, the coverage of the future commercial flows that you/they will have bookkeeping demonstration within 12 months and of the orders acquired (or committed in progress) to put aside from their expiration. It is reasonable to believe that the relative effect of coverage suspended in the Reserve of cash flow hedge will primarily be in relief to economic account in the following exercise. The Group is exposed to consequential risks by the variation of the rates of change, that you/they can influence on its economic result and on the value of the clean patrimony. Particularly: Whereas the societies of the Group sustain costs denominated in different currencies by those of denomination of the respective proceeds, the variation of the rates of change can influence the Result operational of such societies. In 2012, the general amount of the commercial flows directly statements to the risk of change you/he/she has been equivalent to 10% around of the billing. Gives the last budget of Fiat the total billing of 83 billion of euro therefore the figure that we will go to analyze is equal to 830 million of Euro. CASE STUDY The Group, which operates in numerous markets worldwide, is naturally exposed to market risks stemming from fluctuations in currency and interest rates. The exposure to currency risk is mainly linked to the difference in geographic location between the Group’s manufacturing activities and its commercial activities, resulting in cash flows from exports denominated in currencies that differ from those associated with production activities. The Group uses various forms of financing to cover funding requirements for its industrial activities and for financing customers and dealers. Moreover, liquidity for industrial activities was also principally invested in variable-rate or short-term financial instruments. The Financial Services companies normally operate a matching policy to offset the impact of differences in rates of interest on the financed portfolio and related liabilities. Nevertheless, changes in interest rates can result in increases or decreases in revenues, finance costs and margins. Consistent with its risk management policies, the Group seeks to manage risks associated with fluctuations in currency and interest rates through the use of financial hedging instruments. Despite such hedges being in place, sudden fluctuations in currency or interest rates could have a material adverse effect on the Group’s business prospects, earnings and/or financial position. Our analysis in relation what could be a real need for the company wich we may be faced as being an exporter of products in USA where there is a a different currency than the euro will have to face the uncertainties of the market. We will simulate three dfferent scenarios where there will be a fluctuation of the exchange tax, after that we will describe what did happen in 2000 when GM acquired 20% ownership of the Italian car manufacturer doing a mistake with the value of NPV. SCENARIOS Here we start to analyze a scenario where the exchange increase of 10%. We have the exchange rates 1,31 dollars/euros for 830 millions of dollars. Here we have an opposite scenarios where the exchange rates decrease of 10%. We have the exchange rates 1,31 dollars/euros for 830 millions of dollars In these two sceneries we have been able to observe as a small variation of the 10 percent can influence so much a firm that bewitches so many millions of dollars like Fiat. Here in this example we have a simulation of what could happen if Fiat want fix the tax of change for the next 6 months. FIAT use a foreign subsidiary in  US  that will be sending it 10 million dollars in six months. FIAT will need to swap the dollar for the dollars it will be receiving from the sub. In other words, they have a long dollars and short euros. It is short euros because it will need to purchase them in the near future. The company can wait six months and see what happens in the currency markets or enter into a currency forward contract. To accomplish this, it can short the forward contract, or dollar, and go long the euro. The company goes to a Bank and receives a quote of 1. 2483 in six months. This allows FIAT to buy euros and sell dollars. Now they will be able to turn its 10 million dollars into 10 million/1. 2483 =8,010,895 euros in six months. Six months from now if rates are at 1. ,FIAT will be ecstatic because it will have realized a higher exchange rate. If the rate has increased to 1. 2, they would still receive the 1. 2483 it originally contracts to receive from THE BANK, but in this case, they will not have received the benefit of a more favorable exchange rate. NET PRESENT VALUE We can define Net Present Value like the difference between the present value of the future cash flows from an investment and the amou nt of investment. Present value of the expected cash flows is computed by discounting them at the required rate of return. For example, an investment of $1,000 today at 10 percent will yield $1,100 at the end of the year; therefore, the present value of $1,100 at the desired rate of return (10 percent) is $1,000. The amount of investment ($1,000 in this example) is deducted from this figure to arrive at net present value which here is zero ($1,000-$1,000). A zero net present value means the project repays original investment plus the required rate of return. A positive net present value means a better return, and a negative net present value means a worse return, than the return from zero net present value. It is one of the two discounted cash flow techniques (the other is internal rate of return) used in comparative appraisal of investment proposals where the flow of income varies over time. Connected with Fiat we can do an example of like a uncorrect evaluation of NPV would be able to failed a company. In 2000 General Motors (GM) acquired 20% ownership of the Italian car manufacturer Fiat for a price of $2. 4 billion. As with most acquisitions, the initial outlook painted by the companies was rosy. They formed joint ventures in Europe and Latin America, and these ventures saved the companies a combined $2. billion over the first five years of the agreement. It would seem that, with savings like this, the partnership was working out pretty well, but Fiat began losing money. For example, the company lost about $1. 7 billion in 2002, and $1. 3 billion in 2004. The 2002 losses were particularly hard on Fiat, and the company almost went bankrupt. The Italian Government stepped in and helpe d Fiat, but GM stayed out. As a result, GMs stake in Fiat was cut to 10%. In early 2005 GM wrote off its remaining interest in Fiat, meaning that GM put a value of zero on its Fiat investment. Unfortunately for GM, under the terms of the original deal, Fiat had the option to force GM to buy the remaining 90% of the company. The deal would include Fiats $10 billion in debt. If GM valued its 10% stake in Fiat at nothing, how do you think GMs management felt about buying the other 90%? The answer came in February 2005. GM paid Fiat $2 billion just to avoid having to take over Fiat, thereby giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘fiat money’. More recently GM was given assistance by the US Government to save the company from failing.

Life of Toussaint LOuverture essays

Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture essays The country we know today as Haiti ('mountainous land?) was at one time the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Located on the island of Hispaniola, it was the place where Christopher Columbus established his first settlement in the New World. In 1967, it was formally recognized as Saint-Domingue. Many things have happened in Saint-Domingue. Slavery, fires, and rebellion have gone on in Saint-Domingue. Many people took control and lost control of Saint-Domingue. Saint-Domingue had many slaves and plantations. One group of slaves where called the mulattoes orpeople of color.? Men and women were beaten, branded, maimed, and killed, often in ways that only the most depraved mind could imagine. Many slaves ran away to the mountains where they lived as maroons in isolated spots beyond the reach of a special colonial slave patrol, staffed only by mulattoes. By 1791, there were at least 500,000 slaves, most of who worked on plantations where sugarcane, cotton, coffee, and indigo were grown. There was a slave named Toussaint L?Ouverture, who had lived all his life at Breda plantation, about fifteen miles from the capital. He was forty-seven years old and in comparison to the other slaves on the island, he had enjoyeda good and comfortable life?. The owner treated the slaves with a degree of compassion and kindness that was known throughout the colony. Ouverture was born on May 2, 1743, which was then the Feast of All Saints. He was named Francois Dominique Toussaint. As a boy, Toussaint Breda, as he was called then, was sickly and thin as a stick. People around him gave him a nickname that meantfragile stick.? His father was brought as a slave from Africa. Ouverture also rode and looked after the horses. When they became ill, he used his knowledge of medicinal herbs and his skill as ahorse doctor? to heal their aches and pains. He also enjoyed the story of Spartacus, a slave who led a large rebellion of sla ...