The beauty of innovation in the information technology (IT) industry is that a little-known company could spring a surprise by delivering a product that is a magic bullet to well-known problems.
Take the case of file-sharing. It is well-known that computer users in organisations worry about what eventually happens to the data they pass around to colleagues or collaborators.
Attachments
The single most important way in which information gets passed around is through email file attachments. But what happens to data — reports drawn from voluminous bank records, sales data or any data for that matter — is very difficult to predict because there is virtually no protection for the file that was passed around as an attachment.
Pawaa Software, a small Bangalore-based company, that has been in ‘stealth mode' since it was launched in 2007, has developed a file format that wraps itself around the attached file.
The company, with about 30 employees, has designed the Pawaa file format, which enables the original sender or author of the email attachment to control what the recipient is able to do with the file he/she receives, in a way that was hitherto not possible.
Control over data
The sender of a Pawaa file could set a time limit within which the recipient can access the file, whether the recipient can print or make changes or make copies of the file.
Indeed, the original sender can not only do all this, but change his mind at any point when he decides to extend or extinguish any or all these rights of a recipient. Even more attractive is the way the sender of a file can monitor on a real-time basis what the recipient has actually done with the file that he has received.
Key manager
Pawwa's ‘key innovation', says Prakash Baskaran, its Chief Executive Officer, lies in the fact that it does not need a key manager. “This avoids the complexities and vulnerabilities associated with the use of a key manager,” he explains. By separating the process of encryption from authentication, the technique offers ease of use, he adds.
The problem with the traditional technique of using a key manager “rests on the assumption that we know who we are sharing the information with at all times”, says Mr. Baskaran. He points out that this is virtually impossible to ascertain in “a dynamic situation”.
Moreover, the storage of keys can itself generate vulnerability. “The practice of using a key manager, thus, is known to have limitations and complexities,” he says. Instead, Pawaa's security characteristics are “embedded at the content level of the particular file that is being attached”.
Mr. Baskaran says securing files is not a new thing, but the problem is that existing techniques are mostly proprietary, resulting in security features and techniques being platform-specific.
“Microsoft's security features, for example, are specific to its stack or platform,” he notes.
Integrated
Pawaa has now been integrated with several other key platforms such as Business Objects (SAP), SugarCRM (the open source Customer Relationship Manager tool), LifeRay (the enterprise portal that is written in Java), IBM's Cognos (which is a Business Intelligence tool) and Oracle.
For Gmail users
But Mr. Baskaran is most excited about PawaaDOCS, the Google Apps integration. “Gmail users can use Pawaa to send attachments, but protect the information for life, even after the original mail is gone,” he says.
He explains that the integration with Gmail can give Pawaa an opportunity to gather significant critical mass because the user base, which is currently 40 million, is growing by 60,000 every day.
Modest beginning
Mr. Baskaran, who started several series of telecom and services companies in the U.S., recalls that Pawaa started as a “pure DLP (data loss prevention)” company, but quickly realised that the company had to do much more.
“We were forced to innovate, otherwise we would have been dead by now,” he says. His immediate objective is to set the Pawaa file format as the standard for file encryption, but recognises that it would first have to gain popularity.
Seeking venture capitalists
Having already filed for three patents, this completely self-funded company is now looking to attract venture capitalists on board, he says. With a chuckle he adds, “The leaks from Wikileaks would not happened if they had used Pawaa.”
