Deloitte & Touche LLP and the Thurston Group have formed NetDox (Deerfield, Ill.; http://www.netdox.com), a privately held company dedicated to providing a commercial-quality means of delivering sensitive and high-value documents over the Internet. The NetDox service will be a general-purpose Internet messaging solution offering secure, global, end-to-end document delivery with verification and authentication services provided by an independent third-party.
The NetDox service will provide privacy, message integrity, authentication of sender and receiver identity, archival services and document tracking information allowing users to check the status of messages. The new company will also act as a clearinghouse for digital certificates, or digital IDs, which are becoming the standard means of proving one's identity on the Internet.
Holders of digital certificates issued by different certificate authorities, public or private, will be able to exchange secure documents without holding the "root keys" from each certificate authority.
NetDox will launch a beta program in mid-year, and will include an investment bank, a national trade association, a law firm, a global distribution company, and Deloitte & Touche.