Data Embassy Software Platform – Gary LaFever, Anonos

This is texturung TV. Hi everyone. Welcome back to techstrom TV.

I'm really happy. I've got a new well. It's new to our audience.

They're actually a fairly new company just coming out of stuff to introduce you to and who better to introduce you to the company. Then their founder CEO. I'd like you to say hello to Gary.

LeFevre. Gary's never been on Tech strong Gary welcome. It's our place.

It's our pleasure to have you on so Gary before we even get into the company. Let's talk about Gary because And I think we were talking off camera sort of a similar a similar path in many ways. Let's hear a little bit about the Gary LeFevre story.

Absolutely, we had a great conversation before the interview started. It's really about the intersection of of Law and technology and rather than viewing them as foreign Nations one to another the fact that when they can actually cooperate and accomplish new things what it's made possible years not decades ago. It used to be content was King now, it's data is King very often driven by the need for more real time insight and actionability as a result of covid.

And so I was a partner before at Hogan levels. I was also a engineer and and data engineer and data scientists at Accenture and those two have joined but for the last 20 years, I've been working with my co-founder Ted Myers and at this intersection brain solutions to the table that join these two so our prior company which we sold the NASDAQ Gomez in 2010 help to read Link data that appeared unrelated and the results of that is reduced risk to the financial markets. NASDAQ omex bought our company.

They put it over a hundred financial markets around the globe and it's that awareness of both law and technology that caused us to to found Anonymous 10 years ago. I was found in 10 years ago, and that is the The 10 year overnight success that we're good actually, right? Yeah.

It's crazy, but you're right. You know what Gary? before we jump into anonymous when we talk about the intersection of Law and Technology.

technology without law It's kind of like people tell me just let the market forces have at it. Right let capitalism be capitalism. Well without some breaks without some common sense very quickly.

You wind up. You know with with the rich getting richer the point what's kind of where we are the rich getting richer the poor getting poorer and and the rich crushing it right and you you wind up with Robert Barons and stuff like that. Need you know, there's always sort of a counterweight.

There's oh there there needs to be balance in life in the force and everything else. It's kind of that way with technology and law in many ways lore provides the boundaries the guardrails. For for our technology, I think one of the biggest problems we have in society today is quite frankly.

Like you hear Elon Musk is buying Twitter. He's gonna let everyone say whatever they want. It's all it's freedom of speech our law.

And you know kind of legal system has not caught up. to our technology in social media and these kinds of things and so there's this there's this disconnect right now, and that's why we have I think A lot of the issues that we have in not only in our country but in the world today and it's getting worse with deep fakes and the metaverse and all this anyway. It's important that Laurent technology work together.

Let's hear about. Your company and and how it's helping with data and and so forth. Sure before I do that.

I want to touch upon what you just said Alan because I totally agree and the way I look at it is it's about sustainability. Right. So the robber barons can win for a while.

But ultimately, who is it that's buying their services using their products. It's the masses and if they feel downtrod and there will be an uprising and so the reality is sustainability it which is oftentimes influenced and help by law. Okay, but law is not a golden shield or silver bullet is to ensure that there's a balance and and it's that balance of things and even just very quickly if you look at how we've been lost take different approaches.

And I'm gonna stereotype here in generalize, but the only have 15 minutes, right? Um, the US laws related to privacy while they're very responsive and respectful of privacy and individual rights. They have an inclination and orientation to commercial success and it's hard to argue with the commercial success that the US has had compare that to Europe which is seen a lot more atrocities at the individual level with the different world wars Etc.

And there they have more of a focus on fundamental human rights and even Between those two legal systems the US approach and the EU approach you have tensions and it's this intersection of Law and technology that can reconcile those tensions. And so that's what we set out to do with the Nanos. I mentioned earlier or a prior company F10 re-linked data that appeared unrelated and in doing so improved systemic risk in the financial markets.

I don't know if you remember back in 2008. There was the flash crash were trillions of dollars were sucked out of the US financial markets in minutes because there were not control. Those are the commercials right?

Remember, I mean it was scary. It was like, oh my gosh what can happen? Those were the kinds of controls that are prior company made possible in real time.

And so when we sold to NASDAQ omax we were there for a couple of years and we realized oh my gosh, there's a bigger opportunity here where F10 re-linked data that appeared unrelated. What if we could delink data? that was clearly related and in doing so selectively and controllably determine when it's revealed for what purpose by whom Had never been done before that's why this is a 10 year overnight success.

Okay, we actually did a lot of research and development whether what we were talking about was even possible and realized was a lot of controls to protect data when it rests encryption went in transit encryption, but when you're actually making use of the data all the linkages all the identities all the correlations and in a relationships are evident, but you know what you don't need to see all of those for every purpose. So could you selectively reveal that's what Anonymous set out to do. That's what we've done.

We have a very broad IP patent portfolio. We have 26 granted international patents. They're the 70 plus data assets, but more importantly our clients and everything from Pharma to banking Etc have proven that this enables them to make greater use of the data.

Okay in a sustainable long-term manner because it's not violating the rights that are customers and more. Certainly, well as importantly it's not exposing them to liability with their contractual Partners or lawyers or Regulators or enforced. Got it.

I mean, well, you just said it right there. You know. What we Gary I we're gonna I'd like to dive a little.

Oh some onions first pill layers off the onion, but before we do that, I should mention look. recent funding announcement For the company, we you know, I think the pr people would be upset if we didn't mention it why so why don't you why don't you tell the other a little bit? We're very excited and proud of this financing because it's a true reflection of what makes a non of different.

These are uncertain times for many reasons and it certainly a difficult time to get financing for any company, but this is actually a debt structure. And this debt structure is based on the value of our IP portfolio. And this is a debt structure that that actually has been used in the past for medical device companies or other type of developments in the life science medical community where you spend years creating a asset that portfolio patents copyrights Etc and based on that asset portfolio.

You can get a loan Literally alone. So our IP assets were valued at hundreds of millions of dollars and using those as collateral. We have 50 million dollars in brand new debt financing that we are using to make the world aware of the 10 year overnight success.

That is anonymous. On was the coordinator of that and basically what happens is they get insurance policies. They get leading global insurance companies that right PCI insurance policies against the value of our assets and then ghost tree was the actual lender.

So it's a very unique situation, but I would highly hurt for any company that has a valuable IPS portfolio. But and of course you don't give up equity. Correct.

What do you warrants or something? Right it's very minor very minor non-dilutive. So we were very excited about it and would recommend for those companies that have an established.

Well established IP portfolio to check it out. Absolutely. It's a great way of looking at it.

All right, we got that out of the way. We made those folks happy. Look, let's jump back in.

Let's jump back into a 90s and you know, look our audience tends to be fairly technical, right? Gary how is this? Helping affecting changing how you know, where does this play in there life's?

Yes, so my guess is you may have subcommunities within your audience. You have that the devops and the security and then you also have the data users and Innovation. Right?

And those those two are groups that oftentimes see each other at odds, right? Because the data innovators the the cdos the chief Innovation officers their task with using that data to drive value now that can oftentimes be Revenue immediately. And in other situations could be longer term value such as life science research looking for, you know medical breakthroughs, but they're looking to use the data right?

Whereas if you look at devops and the security guys, sometimes they're more concerned about ensuring that there's no downside that the data is not lost. Well, that's great. I can lock up the data.

I'm totally secure I get no value. The the tension is what happens when you're actually using the data. Right encryption does not help when you use data and I love it when people bring up homomorphic encryption because I love science fiction as well.

Right. Homo mortification will always be. At a fraction of the speed and relative value of other data simply because of the processing requirements.

It's not ready for prime time. So in essence realistically encryption is not an answer and perimeter controls are not an answer because I want to make use of the data outside of the environment. Right?

So it's this tension. So what I would say your technical audience of all different categories, what is your answer when you want protections that flow with the data wherever it goes? Outside of your organization outside of your country and when intercepted by parties that it wasn't intended for that's what Anonymous does it protects data in a way that the protection flow wherever the data goes.

You don't have to control the environment. You have inserted the protections into the data and a way to look at it from a technological perspective is a digital twin very highly recognized way of a digital representation of a person place or thing. what we create is a protected version of the digital twin that we call a variant twin and then Is use case for a specific and it has all the controls built into it store ever it goes you have assurances protect.

You know, we were again we were talking off camera for a long time. It seemed like we we took our eye off the prize when it comes to data. Right.

We were very absec became the most important. Part of security right securing our applications securing our infrastructure, you know securing our endpoints. And and we we lost.

sight of or as I say we took our eye off the ball that it data is the crown jewels that that data is is King and securing that data Is is job number one? Right. That's to be well you want to say It's one and one a with.

with making sure that that data is Is you know not fungible? It's not leaking. I don't mean from a security point of view.

But like but I I mean more from hey, we didn't back up the data in the community, right so, you know what I mean, but but preserving and securing that data and then analyzing and making use of that data. Right is that's what that's the lifeblood of companies. It's not how many applications they develop.

It's not what cloud provider there are. You know, it's It's not it's about what's in that data and making sure that that data is remains useful and secure and everything else. So, you know, this is such a timely.

Type of message for our audience out there Alan. What's interesting? Everything you just said is is absolutely correct.

The question I have for your audience is when they hear the phrase securing data. Do they actually extend that term to while in use? so here no because I'm gonna tell you something we just and we're look we're a little pittance of the company here, right?

We just got we've been getting a lot from our bigger public sponsors, you know, the third party compliance test. and and you know around security and so forth and they ask us about data security and there's two questions they ask do you do you encrypt data in storage? Do you encrypt data in transit?

That's it. right Not while it's in you so well, it's amazing to them use means in transit, but that's not really in use. That's just moving in from one place to another so no, I don't think most people are Kind of they they lost sight of that.

It's it's a shame. Yeah, and it's only thing to do what's interesting. And if I'm not insulting you I'm gonna say we're both of a rough aged when we remember the conversion from analog to digital.

And the conversion from analog to digital initially the value proposition was efficiency. You could do things fast, right? It was amazing.

I mean, I programmed A Punch Cards. Okay, I go way back, right? Right, nothing like dropping your Punch Cards on the way to the computer system.

You remember those things especially I that was me. Yeah, absolutely. I'm but what happened and people didn't really take note of it is the conversion from analog to digital was efficiency for the same process.

But the real power of data is when you go beyond the initial process and you repurpose the data for subsequent processing secondary processing. That's when it gets really powerful and that's when it gets really dangerous. So, I believe that the reason people don't associate the term securing data with use Is because the data use used to be within an enclosed environment or Enclave you didn't have to worry about it, right?

They were cinder block walls. There was security fences and what's happened now is data's value actually comes from its flow from its denigration sharing combination elsewhere. And so what was regarded and and almost subconsciously counted on which was Security in use was confined processing.

So if I protected and Transit if I protected when it's at rest and I limit where it's process, I'm okay. That's what's changed. Data is all about use and sharing and combining and flows now and that's why we believe in Nanos and it's very twins has such an opportunity because it secures data when in use no matter where it flows.

Great. Hey Gary where we're probably overtime, but I we kind of let people know if they want to find out more about Anonymous if they want to get take a look at it put their hands on it. What's the best way to do engage here?

com and there's there's high level information and you can double triple click and go as deep as you want and we look forward to the discussions. Are there free trials proof of Concepts? We have a proof of value and this you will not find anywhere else in the industry and it's a good thing you ask this question because I would have gotten in trouble with our PR people.

Um, not only do we protect data when in use secure the data when in use but we will guarantee that the accuracy you get from processing our secured partner data in use is a hundred percent hundred percent accuracy and relevance to see if you had processed unprotected clear text. So if you engage in a POV with Anonymous and at the end of that POV, it is not clear that the software is capable of generating the same accuracy as unprotected Claire text. We give you your money back.

fantastic Let me show you guys are you called it a variant twin a very interesting point twin, correct? It's a use case specific variation of the digital twin and I want to raise while a lot of people pay attention to our software and our capabilities because of personal data and privacy a digital twin can be of a person place or thing. And therefore the variant twin can also help to safeguard Trade Secrets.

We're working with one of the leading new digital cities about how they can make use of it. And so it helps to protect data for any use of any kind anywhere in a manner that the controls for embedded in the data and flow wherever it's processed. Excellent Gary we're out of time.

Our next guests are in studio here. Hey, man, it was a pleasure meeting. You truly was luck with the Nanos.

Don't don't disappear for 10 years on me. Come back. Keep us posted.

We're gonna be doing a lot of stuff around data. I mentioned to you we'd love to have you know, fantastic. Thank you time.

Thank you. Hey Gary left fever from Anonymous. Go.

Check it out. We're gonna take a break contact strong. We'll be right back.