Cape Town, South Africa, 9 September, 2004:

thawte Consulting (Pty) Ltd, the second largest commercial provider of SSL certificates according to the latest study performed by Netcraft in July 2004 has launched their Crypto Challenge VI and Lunch Hour Challenge competitions. Both competitions are free to enter and aimed at Cryptography hobbyists of all levels: from beginners wanting to learn, to experts looking for a challenge.

The first person to crack the code wins the main prize: a Sony Mini DV Digital Handycam, there are runner’s up prizes too. Interested participants should take advantage of this fun campaign whilst they still can. Clues will be posted on the site as the competition progresses, and Lunch Hour Challenges are updated weekly, where winning entrants can have their details posted on the site.

The Lunch Hour Challenge is a recent addition to the Crypto Challenge, developed for people interested in Cryptography but still learning, and experts that enjoy the hobby but do not have the time to decrypt a difficult cipher. This challenge is purely for the fun of it - there are no prizes and no rules.

To find out more, or register to enter please go to www.thawte.com/cryptochallenge

About thawte Consulting (Pty) Ltd

thawte is an established, trusted Certification Authority - a company that facilitates message encryption by managing security credentials and public keys. thawte does this by issuing digital certificates to parties once independent proof of their identity has been obtained. It has issued over 484,000 SSL certificates since its inception in 1995. www.thawte.com