Blog FabulaRosa

The 2-day innovation marketplace event ’PitchLive’ took place at the Business Design Centre in London, UK on 24 & 25 October. More than 30 innovative startups and SMEs pitched to crowds of investors & end users.
…and we were one of them! We had the chance to present our application within 7 minutes.
We were proud to announce that FabulaRosa is available in all the important market stores (Apple, Android, Blackberry, and Intel).
We introduced our ’4 New Protocols’ for protecting the entire authentication process by
1. Transferring password by QR-code.
2. Transferring only disguised passwords using a time-based stealth mode or
3. Using a ’Secret’ based login.
4. Supporting a multi-component authentication and processing of confidential information.
We hoped that potential investor were listening attentively.
We are convinced that FabulaRosa fit for NSTIC, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace and that FabulaRosa has the potential to become the common pattern login for operation systems, for business customer and privileged identities.
In additional we had a booth at the simultaneous expo. We have received a lot of positive feedback for our pitch and the booth.

Please follow the link to our 7-minute-presentation

We met Ben Rooney, the Technology Editor for the Wall Street Journal in Berlin on the 26th September.
He was travelling through Europe in order to meet lots of innovative people. The European School of Management and Technology was the host of the event.
We had the chance to present FabulaRosa with a 30-second-pitch.
Now we are waiting with bated breath as to how he is going to utilize the experience of this tour. Of course we are expecting more contacts as a result of this meeting.

On 21st September we had the opportunity to present our application FabulaRosa in a five-minute pitch. The competition took place in the Lion Hall of the Recanati Building at Tel Aviv University and was hosted by MIT Forum. 40 Start-ups and SMEs from Europe and the Middle East regions took part in the competition. A huge spectrum of different security problem-solving including hardware and software solutions was presented.
Unfortunately the interview with the jury lasted only three minutes. We didn’t get the chance to explain our innovation in depth. We’d had big expectations to get in closer contact with an interested expert audience, but these expectations were not satisfied.
We didn’t win this final, but we gathered a lot of experience and came to a decision to stay on stage. We are taking part in the PitchLive Event in London in October.

FABULAROSA -The Image in Your Mind – Recognized For High Definition Passwords by Pattern
MARIESTAD (SWEDEN) – September 10, 2011 – Kikusema AB (https://www.fabularosa.com) announced today that the FABULAROSA application has been nominated as the one of 10 European finalists for Global Security Challenge in 2011. The European Regional Final is taking place on 21st September at the Tel Aviv University.
The Global Security Challenge is the world’s leading security innovation competition, rewarding innovative startups and SMEs.
Kikusema AB is proud to present the touch-screen version for smart phones and tablets based on Android and BlackberryOS as well as on iOS (iPad).
It is a challenge to keep up with the trend of the new touch-screen devices. People do not want to use a keyboard any longer. Because such devices can easily be lost, authentication must be done in an innovative way.
Besides solutions like biometrical scanners, smart cards, and SSO, there are some ideas to create passwords by visualization. Some ideas use pattern. But is the combination amount of a 3×3 matrix from Android, or the 4×4 from Windows-8 really sufficient to protect the authentication process and user’s credentials?
„We are convinced that FABULAROSA is the Number One of pattern logins for the next generation of touch-screen devices,“ said Christine Ziske, CEO of the Kikusema AB, and she highlights:“Our aim is for it to become directly integrated into the most important operation systems like iOS, Android and Windows.“
With only ’One Image in Your Mind’; long and complex High Definition (HD) passwords are generated at the point of drawing the image without storing at all. This idea was firstly implemented in 2001 as a desktop version.
What is the innovation behind this?
Many different passwords are created by drawing only one image on a virtual ’Compass Rose’ and applying such universal concepts as colours, direction, patterns and by using the unique algorithms of FABULAROSA. The image can be also defined as a pattern login. The user needn’t recall single characters, rather patterns. Thinking in pattern and remembering pattern is essential part of human behaviour.
FABULAROSA creates passwords with a length of 850 characters taken from the UTF16 character set, containing 65,535 characters. FABULAROSA allows 1350 possible selection. All possible combinations of passwords can be calculated as 65,535 to the 1350 power.

RSA Conference 2011 – with its 20th anniversary – has concluded. We experienced fantastic days at the Expo and the Conference as well.
With approx. 14,000 delegates and more than 300 exhibitors the RSA Conference is the biggest Cyber Congress. Developers, encryption gurus, GRC experts, CISO, engineers, lawyers, auditors, people of the government or private sector and more met here.
The German Pavilion’s presence was excellent. The Federal Office of Internet Security and 15 IT-Security companies (us included) were represented there. It was great to show our FabulaRosa within this pavilion.
Our booth was highly frequented and we were busy almost all the time. We’ve got a few contacts; we’ve got some important contacts. But we are waiting for feedback now. That is very hard. We are hoping for the best but we know it is a hard way to go on and we have to think about our next steps. What is coming next – new geographical markets or new market stores?

However, it was an exciting week, full of events.
The conference started on Monday afternoon with the Innovation Sandbox. Memories from our presentation last year came up again. Additional there was the German-American Roundtable with many interesting presentations around the topic „Embedded Security for Smartphone and Automotive Applications“. On Monday night the exhibition opened and the IT-experts flooded into the hall.

On Wednesday we all came together for a press interview with interested journalists in the German Pavilion. What a pity only a few came. That’s why we don’t expect big headlines about our product during the next weeks.
On Wednesday afternoon we were invited for a VIP Session „Cloud Security & Governance“. Thomas P. Heiser, President of RSA and Arthur Coviello, Jr. himself were the hosts.

On Thursday evening there was the Codebrackers’ Bash in the City Hall of San Francisco. A great event! Unforgettable the shine of hundreds of flashing pins shaped as Alice, Bob or Mallory.

The timetables between the conference and the exhibition were well coordinated that’s why we had the possibility to see all the keynotes. The opening keynote with the RSA founders was gorgeous. It was overwhelming to see the show about these giants and see our heroes in real life too.

We are very proud that we are shown within this video, right at the end when the future is discussed.

The ending keynotes on Friday started with the great Hugh Thompson Show. He and his guest Bob Sullivan and the star of BBC3’s hugely popular THE REAL HUSTLE, Alexis Conran made the audience aware about the problem of the blind trust in Third Parties and all this in a way which was high quality entertainment.

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

KikuSema GmbH is going to be an exhibitor at the Expo of the RSA Conferences 2011 in San Francisco (14-18th February). We are a member of the initiative “IT Security Made in Germany” and have our booth 1350-6 within the German Pavilion.
This year we are proud to present further developments of our application.
First of all: FabulaRosa for Smart Phones, transferring High Definitions passwords by barcode.
Barcodes have recently become the smartest way to ensure a touchless and hard-to-hack authentication.

The desktop apps as well as the mobile apps are now available in Japanese, simplified and traditional Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, English, Swedish and German.
FabulaRosa is designed to create High Definition (HD) passwords within the range of a maximum length of 850 characters taken from the UTF16 character set, or a minimum length of 10 characters taken from the ASCII character set. At present purely numeric and alpha-numeric passwords can also be created by FabulaRosa.

The brand new augmentation SIGNPassOne is presented too.
SIGNPassOne is a new authentication protocol. Between the communication partners: personal smart phones and public devices, a password is transferred by barcode. It is designed to secure the entire authentication process by transferring only disguised passwords using a time-based stealth mode. The application supports a multi-component authentication. At the higher level confidential information is processed. It uses the mobile version of FabulaRosa for creating HD-passwords and a server app.

Authentication by smart phones becomes essential for the user, both in private or public spaces, whether using trustworthy or untrustworthy devices. The transfer of High Definition passwords and confidential information by barcode using a stealth mode represents a paradigm shift in the authentication process.

The New needs friends! We are looking for partners.

Additional information about FabulaRosa and SignPlusOne:
https://www.fabularosa.com/rsa/FabulaRosaProductDemo.html
https://www.signpassone.com/SignPassOne.aspx

Right from the beginning the application FabulaRosa was designed to create High Definition Passwords by replacing the ordinary keyboard of 94 characters with a virtual keyboard of the UTF16 character set.
By choosing the sub character set, passwords in your own language can be created.
But now the user interface of the application is translated into Japanese, simplified and traditional Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, English, Swedish and German.
Although FabulaRosa applies universal concepts as colours, direction and pattern, we think the users appreciate the possibility to utilize their first language.
Please follow the link to read the introduction of FabulaRosa in the above mentioned languages:
https://www.fabularosa.com/FabulaRosaIntro.aspx

Shortly after our appearance in the Innovation Sandbox Contest at RSA® Conference in February 2010, the president of the ISSS Dr. Dübendorfer invited us to present our application because it fits very well with the topic of „Innovative Alternatives to Passwords“.
On October 26th we went to Zurich to demonstrate our FabulaRosa to a broad clientele of computer scientists.
We had some aces up our sleeves; we were prepared to show our mobile version on an Android Smartphone in an online demonstration.
Our intention is not only to develop and show a really good password maker or password management system but also to have an application which fits on the requirements of security protocols in the near future.
We do not only want to have an „end product“ but rather we want to cover the whole process of authentication with many facets.
That is why we have already installed the following features:
The passwords are transferred disguised using a time-based stealth mode.
Furthermore there is a procedure to protect the user’s credentials.
The passwords can be converted to bar code.
The last feature is important for integrating smart phones into the authentication process. This authentication via smart phones is essential for the user, both in private or public spaces, whether using trustworthy or untrustworthy devices. However, at the evening event in Zurich a range of smartcards solutions have been presented and also one biometrical authentication method which have said to be alternatives to passwords. Besides our application there was only one application which sticks with the password authentication. We are both trying to overcome the well-known disadvantages of current passwords by using visualisation but the applications are very different. It was a very interesting evening because it was like „authentication in a nutshell“; all the information about advantages and disadvantages, about alternatives for passwords, and how secure they are and how to measure this were very useful.
While mingling at the event we came in contact with some people. But once again there is a lack of people who are interested to learn about our application in depth.
Maybe some more contacts will emerge after some time. Meanwhile we hope that a lot of people will find us on YouTube, see our presentation and become interested!
Link to the video presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSLM0wXk4Ms
Link to the Q & A – Session
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ICWzORULA&feature=related
Link to the slides:
10-Fabularosa-Ziske-ISSS-Abendseminar-Alternativen-zum-Passwort-2010.pdf
What is next for us?
First of all we are showing our application during the RSA® Conferences in February 2011. We are one of the exhibitors in the German Pavilion under the slogan „IT Security Made in Germany“.
Come and visit us from 14th until 17th February 2011 in the booth 1350-6 in the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
We are very excited because the RSA® Conference is going celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2011.
We would like to enter once again the Innovation Sandbox by submitting a new application.
Meanwhile we want to submit for SC Magazine Technology Innovation Award,
maybe for the Info Security’s 7th Annual „Global Product Excellence“ Award as well for the Red Herring Europe and European Identity Award.
We still try to raise people’s awareness and we are still are looking for partners for cooperation in such areas as:
• Estimation of the market value of FABULAROSA
• Scientific consulting and mathematical estimation of the application
• Patenting

San Francisco – RSA Conference – Monday, March 1 2010
The first day of the RSA Conference started with the Innovation Sandbox Event. On this Monday, March 1, each finalist of the TOP TEN MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANY was given the opportunity to present their emerging technology before a panel of judges comprised of venture capital professionals, CISOs, CTOs and industry experts. And we were among these companies.
It was amazing!!! It was exciting!!!
We are very proud to have been a part of the Innovation Sandbox; a half-day event at the RSA Conference 2010.
We had the opportunity to present our application online in an exciting demo area with the other of the „top 10“ group of start-up companies. After three hours of standing in the booth we were very exhausted, because we have had many, many very interested attendees.
And then we jumped directly onto the stage to present our companies and our product.
The judges said it was tough choice to make as there were a lot of great submissions.
It was a great success.
It was the first step to get publicity.
Even if we were not given the award of this year it was a great jump start for us.
During the following conference days we made contacts and meetings with industry experts e.g. Symantec, Microsoft, Adobe, Webroot, and HP as well as venture capital professionals of the Silicon Valley.
Within the framework “IT-Security made in Germany” there was a German Pavilion within the exhibition part of the conference organized by the TeleTrust Association.
We had an invitation to the German General Consulate and there we had the opportunity to meet high level IT-Experts of government and industry.
After this great success to be one the TOP TEN MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANY at the RSA Conference 2010 we are expecting a rapid progress for the market entry of our application FabulaRosa.
How will we continue?
We wanted to submit for the Teletrust Innovation Award, become a speaker at the ISSE 2010 (Information Security Solutions Europe) in Berlin and at the RSA Conference 2010 in London, and become one of the exhibitors in the German Pavilion next year at RSA Conference 2011. The RSA Conference will celebrate in 2011 its 20th anniversary.
Let’s go to San Francisco again.
Maybe with a new innovation?
Meanwhile we will work to improve the market impact of our application and on the expansion of our customers.