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Gold/Mining/Energy : Canadian Technology issues
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To: Codfish who wrote (133)1/16/1996 10:04:00 AM
From: Vartan   of 640
 
Bill:

This issue of what technology will be adopted for a specific application
will always be a difficult one to answer at the best of times. Companies
like VISA and Mastercard are promoting public specifications, so it would
be unclear that VISA would be looking at Certicom as the only solution to
security. Cryptography is an emerging technology. It would be premature
to say that Certicom has the entire solution to encryption. There is also
some concerns as to whether Certicoms will be adopted as a
a worldwide standard. Visa will be taking a long hard look at the entire
issue and would not want to lock themselves into one companies
proprietory technology this early into such an emerging industry. Companies
like VISA would want to work with a number of firms in order to be as
standard as possible to acheive maximum interoperability with all systems.
The objective of encryption is to make it as transparent as possible
and with the greatest ease of use. The objective is to be as standard
and interlinked as possible. Certicom has the formidible task of promoting
their own proprietory algorithms. SKB uses open standards that the rest
of the world uses.

VISA is only a small. albeit important, piece of the worldwide cryptographic
opportunity. For sure Certicom and VISA have discussed initiatives,
but everyones talking to everyone. I like SKB because it seems to be
the only company that is solution oriented. SKB's product is designed
to work as a user friendly transparent solution. Transparency or ease of
use is going to be a key issue for industry players. Transparent meaning
that the technology works virtually unnoticed by the user. For example,
SKB offers a self contained encryption engine with its own microprocesser
onboard its encryption card. This means that that all encryption occurs
off its host processor onboard its encryption card. All encryption
occurs off the host processor, which is not only more secure, but significantly
faster because it does not compromise the host computer's processor.
SKB holds the patent for this concept.
A cryptologist recently suggested that no single firm has a clear advantage
in the broad scope of the required solution. Technologies will converge and many
of todays players may not resemble the ultimate solution, if any.
There are many players currently in this field including such heavyweights
as MSFT, NSCP and there is considerable risk in suggesting that any
one company has a "lock" on the technology.
RSA (the worlds standards body for encryption) is holding its annual
conference this week, and we can expect to see a number of announcements
coming from the various industry players. I understand SKB will be
speaking at the conference, and I will be sharing what they have to say
as soon as I know.
Please understand that these are only my observations and I am certainly
not an encryption expert.

Vartan
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