What's the password?

Road Runner gives central Floridians a memory boost The Road Runner broadband Internet service has launched an "All Access Pass" to make the Internet more fun and less of a hassle for Web surfing subscribers and their central Florida neighbors. Using software from Catavault, the new Road Runner value-add remembers names and passwords to give subscribers one-click access to more than 2400 Web sites.

"We think it's a pretty special service," said Dave Cyril, interactive services director for central Florida Road Runner. Cyril has personal reasons to appreciate and promote the service. "I have probably dozens of user names and passwords out there. If I can remember one out of five, I'm doing really well," he said.

Remembering passwords is not the biggest headache that consumers deal with; remembering user names is far more mettlesome, he said. "People are going to use two or three passwords, so you can usually figure out what password you used, but figuring out your user name is often difficult," he added.

Catavault provides a security blanket that allays any fears he might have about giving subscribers access to thousands of Web sites - and vice versa, Cyril said. "[Catavault] encrypts everything. It's very secure as far as our users going and shopping on the Internet or storing their passwords and potentially sensitive information," he said.

With Road Runner's All Access Pass, subscribers can:

- Store their user names and passwords for more than 2400 Web sites

- Link to and automatically log onto third-party Web sites that require a user name and password with one click

- Auto-register at their choice of Web sites without filling in repetitive personal information

"The setup was not onerous on our part. Catavault did a lot of the work for us," Cyril said. "All we had to do was provide some guidance for what we wanted."

Thus Philadelphia-based Catavault became a central Florida memory bank where withdrawals from Road Runner and other central Florida users are welcome and encouraged.

"You don't have to remember anything," said Catavault CEO Jonathan Bari, noting that the service is available to anyone online, though he hoped Road Runner's endorsement would add validity for central Florida subscribers. "We have passwords for sites ranging from Amazon.com to ZanyBrainy.com and everything in between."

Catavault does this through its subscriber sign-up, which in turn is accessed through the Road Runner central Florida Web page. A subscriber joins the service and gets a single user name and password that is placed in a "personalized vault" where it is "encrypted to ensure safety and privacy," Bari said. "We will then, with one click, link and log you onto that site so that it recognizes you."

Central Floridians can go directly to Catavault or use Road Runner's privately labeled service as the gateway, a value-add for Road Runner that adds nothing to the subscription cost.

Neither Cyril nor Bari would disclose financial details, but Bari noted that Catavault has "revenue-sharing agreements with around 400" of the sites with which it works, including Amazon.com, Dell, America Online and some smaller companies.

"Suffice it to say there are some technologies to use with the server to private label it for somebody else," Bari said. "Road Runner is the only co-branded user site that we have right now. It benefits them as a company, benefits their customers and benefits us."

In fact, said Cyril, it goes beyond 50,000 and growing Road Runner customers in central Florida.

"Our `Around Town' site is open to the public," he said. "Potentially anybody who wanted to come in and visit our site and sign up for this is welcome to do it." The password will remember the rest.