Shark Tank: Race condition

25.04.2006
This company uses Lotus Domino for e-mail in a highly secure environment. That means user security depends on electronic certificates -- and in this environment, they expire every two years, says a pilot fish working there.

"Users start getting notified 90 days prior to the expiration that the certificate will expire, and the notification includes a date," fish says. "But they're still surprised when it finally expires and they can't access their e-mail.

"We also enforce password expiration at 90-day intervals. Users start getting notified about this about 15 days prior to the actual expiration."

One morning fish walks in to find a frantic voice mail from a sales guy who can't get into his e-mail. Fish returns the call and determines that the sales guy has been getting certificate expiration notices, but "just clicked whatever made the thing go away."

"I go through the recertification process and tell him to wait 15 minutes for the server to pick it up," says fish. "And if he can't log in after that, to give me another call.

"I get another call. This time he says it's telling him his password expired. I ask if he's gotten any notifications about that and he hesitates before saying he's been canceling those, too.