First Anniversary Brings New Meaning For CATAVAULT's 'Declaration of Password Independence'; Microsoft's HailStorm Initiative Threatens Online Identity Freedom.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2001

"The Declaration of Password Independence," proclaimed a year ago on the very spot where our Founding Fathers declared their freedom more than two centuries before from "the British Crown," celebrates its first anniversary today with a new meaning.

The Declaration of Password Independence (www.catavault.com/declaration), enacted last year as a call for liberation from multiple Internet user names and passwords, has taken on a new role as a rallying point for businesses and consumers whose ability to access their choice of Internet identity services is being threatened by the upcoming release of Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP operating system.

According to published reports, Microsoft Passport will be entwined with Windows XP as the exclusive identity service offered to consumers on the new operating system. Moreover, this transcends other applications - for example, XP users who wish to utilize such key services as Windows Messenger (for Instant Messaging) may just be required to use Microsoft's exclusive identity and authentication service.

"We have great respect for Microsoft as an innovator and a competitor," said Jonathan Bari, Chairman and CEO of CATAVAULT (www.catavault.com/autologin), developer of patent-pending Internet identity technology that is both complementary and competitive to Passport. "However, we have great concerns about Microsoft's plan to provide an exclusive and proprietary online identity and authentication service with Windows XP. Just as most businesses must give their customers the option of using different payment methods such as cash, check, debit cards, and various credit and charge cards, the same is true with respect to online identity. The competitive environment that will enable end users to make the choices that fit their individual needs and preferences, both now and in the future, needs to be assured."

"In renewing our commitment to The Declaration of Password Independence, we're urging consumers, businesses and our civic leaders to recall the meaning of the original Declaration of Independence: that freedom to choose should rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of just one company," Bari continued.

Proclaimed aloud last year by a Benjamin Franklin re-enactor during the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, The Declaration of Password Independence notes that "consumers should be endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are convenience, privacy, security and the pursuit of easily surfing the Internet" and that "it is the public's right, it is their duty, to demand new safeguards for their future security."

CATAVAULT, which is available via any device (i.e., PC, PDA, Mobile Phone, Set-top Box), at anytime and from anywhere, enables users to:

-- Store their User Names and Passwords for more than 3,400 leading Web sites
ranging from Amazon.com to ZDNet

-- Link to and automatically log onto 3rd party Web sites that require a User
Name and Password - with just one click!

-- Auto-register for their choice of leading Web sites - without filling in all
of the repetitive personal information required on registration and checkout
forms.

About CATAVAULT

CATAVAULT's patent pending server and client-side technology (www.catavault.com) powers the "All Access Pass to the Internet" so that users do not need to remember all of their authentication credentials for more than 3,400 sites, ranging from Amazon.com to ZDNet. CATAVAULT's All Access Pass to the Internet, which is licensed to 3rd party private label partners such as Time Warner's Road Runner (www.catavault.com/privatelabel), is revolutionizing the way businesses and consumers manage online activities. CATAVAULT is PC, PDA, Mobile Phone and Set-top Box enabled, so users can access their information from any device, at any time and from anywhere. CATAVAULT is funded by The Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Aegis Investment Resources. From January through August 2000, Andersen incubated CATAVAULT. CATAVAULT's other backers include private investors.

====================================================================== Notice: Microsoft(R) and Windows(R) are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other products, services and/or brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. ======================================================================

The Declaration of Password Independence IN CONGRESS, AUGUST 2, 2000. The Unanimous Declaration of CATAVAULT,

When, in the course of rapid Internet growth, it becomes necessary for one company to dissolve the bonds which have prevented the people from logging onto Web sites, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that the people should declare freedom from forgotten User Names and Passwords, Invalid Login Screens, Registration Rage and user authentication without standardization.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all User Names and Passwords are not created equal, that consumers should be endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are convenience, privacy, security and the pursuit of easily surfing the Internet. It is the right of the people to demand a new solution, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. It is the public's right, it is their duty, to demand new safeguards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of Web surfers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems - say goodbye to sticky notes. The history of the Internet is a history of User Name and Password proliferation without standardization, leading to repeated incorrect User Name and Password entry, and thus repeated Invalid Login screens. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The rapid growth of the Internet, the proliferation of User Names and Passwords, and the lack of standardization of those User Names and Passwords have combined to subject the people - Consumers - to a growing sense of frustration, the evidence of which is stated below:

-- For requiring the people to have so many User Names and

Passwords

-- For requiring the people to use a combination of letters and

numbers in their User Names and Passwords

-- For challenging the people to remember randomly generated User

Names and Passwords

-- For mitigating the immediacy of accessing information, goods

and services on the Internet with all those Invalid Login

screens

-- For having the people repeatedly type in "xxxxx" and be told

"Login Error, Try Again"

-- For requiring the people to fill out name, rank and serial

number over and over to sign up for Web sites

-- For necessitating that the people sign up over and over at the

same Web site when they cannot remember their User Names and

Passwords

The rapid growth of the Internet, the proliferation of User Names and Passwords, and the lack of standardization of those User Names and Passwords have combined to subject Businesses to a growing level of market inefficiencies, the evidence of which is stated below:

-- For decreasing online sell-through as evidenced by the high

number of abandoned shopping trips and carts

-- For increasing customer service costs when customers need to

call in, email or chat online with a customer service

representative to obtain their forgotten User Names and

Passwords

-- For limiting the lifetime value of a customer

We, CATAVAULT, therefore do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people and businesses who use the Internet, solemnly publish and declare, that CATAVAULT will absolve the public from these problems by privately and securely managing User Names and Passwords, auto-registering the people for 3rd party Web sites, enabling access to CATAVAULT from any device - PCs, Palm Pilots and Wireless Phones - ergo serving as a veritable Password Panacea. CATAVAULT pledges to act as the people's Global Gateway to the Internet from this day forward - Vault through the Internet with CATAVAULT.