LeeMah DataCom Security Corp, Hayward, California provider of data security systems since 1984 (CI No 1,259), has announced the results of the second annual LeeMah Hacker Challenge, a marketing stunt for its Traqnet/Infokey security system, in which it set out to prove that hackers can be defeated. According to Coopers & Lybrand, the international accounting and consulting firm that supervised the two-week-long contest, 2,009 hackers were foiled in their attempts to retrieve the secret message stored in two protected personal computers in their offices in New York and San Francisco. The Traqnet uses a combination of patented technologies with a DES Data Encryption Standard algorithm to ensure complete dial-up communications security. LeeMah says the odds against a hacker penetrating the system’s three levels of security to retrieve the secret message were better than one in 72 quadrillion. The secret message read the persistent hunter who wins his prize sooner or later becomes the hunted. The company says that the contest’s sole purpose was to demonstrate to companies that there is a way that they can stop hackers. UK distibutor for LeeMah Loadplan Ltd says that there has been quite an interest in Traqnet in the UK following the British Approvals Board for Telecommunications approval of the product range in August this year.
