Altnet
Altnet points system
Altnet engaged Castelain to design, develop and implement the security solution for a distributed system that rewards users for sharing their PC resources (CPU, storage, bandwidth). The system was deployed successfully in June 2003 and is installed on over 30 million PCs. The system allocates a unique public/private key and certificate to each user, resulting in a database of over 30 million digital certificates with new certificates being allocated at a rate of up to 800,000 certificates per day. This probably makes it the largest security solution of its kind in the world.
Castelain was engaged to define the requirements, design and assist in the implementation of the security solution for a Points Rewards System. The solution is designed to reward peer-to-peer users for sharing their PC resources and for sharing digitally signed content on Altnet's P2P network. Altnet's customers generally need to upload a significant amount of data to the Internet in a very short period of time. A good example would be a movie studio wishing to distribute a Harry Potter movie trailer online to hundreds of thousands of users in the lead up to the film's release.
Altnet's P2P system was expected to be a high-profile target for hackers, so developing an appropriate security solution requiring careful planning. To date the system has proven completely secure - even specialised Eastern European security experts brought in as independent security consultants after the project went live were unable to crack the secure points metering and rewards system.
At the time of writing, Altnet's points system processes over 10 million upload/download transactions a day, with up to 300,000 new users installing the Points Rewards System software every day.
Testimonial
"Our software works in hostile and uncontrollable environments." said Anthony Rose CTO of Altnet. "We couldn't address every conceivable threat in a first release, so we needed a pragmatic approach and a robust design that we could be build on to meet threats as they were identified and encountered."
"Castelain's consultants were quick to come to terms not just with the technical problems, but also with our company's business objectives. They have an excellent grasp of security and business issues. With their help we were able to identify the threats and design and build a solution as clever and innovative as the software it runs with."
"Castelain don't hoard knowledge. They worked very closely with our architects and coders to teach them the skills they needed to build and maintain the solution themselves. I'd have no hesitation in recommending them."
