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RESCUECOM Interviews Jesse Pollak about How Clef Wants to Replace Passwords

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RESCUECOM recently released an article about Clef, a new startup that is looking to use people’s mobile phones as a potential replacement to typing out passwords.  Since then, RESCUECOM has had the chance to speak to Clef’s chief product officer and cool person in technology, Jesse Pollak.  Pollak shared many interesting details about Clef’s product and the company as a whole during the interview.

Pollak told RESCUECOM that Clef’s origins date all the way back to 2011.  The company’s CEO was working for Adobe at the time, researching ways for the company to identify users through their mobile devices.  Around the same time, the CEO heard about LinkedIn’s password breach.  According to Pollak, the combination of these events inspired the eventual CEO to start working on an idea that would replace passwords with mobile devices.  Pollak said that as people reported on more major server hacks and password breaches, it became clear to the CEO that “passwords are broken.”  Eventually, Pollak and another partner met the CEO at Pomona College in 2012 and they began building the company that would become Clef.

“The best way to think about Clef is to think about digital signatures,” said Pollak when asked to describe the product.  According to Pollak, Clef creates a new digital signature every time someone activates the app on his or her phone.  That digital signature is unique and the computer verifies it when signing into a website or service that utilizes Clef.  Pollak went on to describe passwords as “symmetric cryptography” since both the user and the server know the same code and match it.  Pollak then described how Clef operates as “asymmetric cryptography”, since there is a private key on someone’s phone and public key on a site’s servers.  The keys do not match and verification requires both of them.  If a hacker breaks into a server and downloads a list of passwords, that person can gain access to those accounts.  However, with Clef, downloading the public keys from the server doesn’t give them access, as they would also need to hack every single user’s phone for their private digital signatures as well.  While Clef can potentially make people’s online accounts more secure this way, it will not be able to protect smartphones or computers from online threats like malware.  People should always have a strong Internet security program protecting their technology as well.

Pollak also went on to say that “passwords insert human error into a cryptography system.”  Clef’s goal is to create a system where no user can “mess it up” with incorrect information.  “We want to make it so that your smartphone can connect to your computer and tell it what it needs to know about you, logging you into all your accounts automatically.”  Pollak says that Clef’s system significantly increases convenience for those who use it, as it “makes phones do all the hard work for us.”  If any Clef users find trouble signing in on their computer while using app, they may have a hardware problem causing connection issues and will require a computer repair company to look into the issue.

Clef’s chief product officer says that so far Clef has focused on getting its system into small business sites and sites that use WordPress.  However, the company has a much grander vision for the long-term.  “We want to change consumer log in,” Pollak explained, saying that eventually the company wants major ecommerce and social sites to use Clef’s system.  Pollak was realistic however, saying it will take a lot of hard work to get to that point.  He emphasized that “it will take a long time.”

To learn more about Clef and Jesse Pollak, check out https://getclef.com/.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC (1-800-737-2837).

For More Information, Contact:

Media Relations
pr@rescuecom.com
1-315-882-1100

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