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Strategies & Market Trends : ZixIt Corporation (ZIXI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ProDeath who wrote (2532)	6/17/2000 4:34:00 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4120

Wow, this sounds just like what ZIXI plans to do....except someone else has already deployed the system and generated PAYING customers. They key is the revenues - if you understand it! I really will enjoy this ride. Digital Signatures Already in Use Filed at 2:03 a.m. EDT By The Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- If a Utah farmer wants a loan, he can offer his tractor up as collateral on the Internet. Likewise, a clerk at the Salt Lake district attorney's office can file a case in court without leaving the office. The electronic signatures necessary to seal such transactions -- just validated by Congress on Friday -- are already a part of daily commerce in Utah, the first state to approve the use of so-called e-signatures. ``Utah's a little bit ahead of the game,'' said Robert Stewart, the coordinator of the state's digital signature effort. ``It's just the federal government that finally got on board here.'' The Senate on Friday approved legislation giving records and signatures sent through cyberspace the same legal validity as a pen-and-paper document. The House approved the measure earlier this week, and the bill awaits a signature from President Clinton, who has expressed support. While the federal bill has been two years in the making, 46 states have passed laws recognizing electronic signatures. Utah passed its Digital Signatures Act in 1995. In the interim, several Utah companies developed software to make digital signatures a reality. In most cases, the technology is based on two codes consisting of a long string of random digits. A computer database assigns the codes to a user, who keeps one private and registers the second with a repository, in some cases a bank. When a document with a digital signature is sent, the receiving party can find the sender's public signature ``key'' in the repository and use it to decipher the signature without learning the private code. If the document is tampered with en route, the signature mutates. Experts say these digital signatures, which can also be used to encrypt documents to keep them secret, will make online business deals, home mortgages or car sales a reality. ``Today most people go to a Web site to fill out an application for a loan or an insurance policy ... and then have to do the rest (of the transaction) on paper,'' said Ben Gould, vice president of marketing for iLumin Corp., an Orem-based company that has developed digital signature software. ``Now, I can go to a site, fill out that application, sign it digitally and I'm done,'' he said. ``I can even have the money transferred without getting out my seat.'' Banks and government offices in Utah already use the technology. The Salt Lake City district attorney's office has been filing warrants and cases online as part of a program developed with iLumin. Since February 1999, First Security Bank, working through the Salt Lake-based digital signature licenser USERTrust Inc., has accepted electronic bids from state residents who want to offer private property as collateral for small loans, like the farmer with a tractor. This spring, Digital Signatures Trust, a subsidiary of Salt Lake City's Zions Bancorp., became the federal government's first contractor for digital signature certificates. The company is exploring ways to allow companies to electronically file their employees' W-2 forms or have students sign up for federal loans over the Web. Scott Lowry, Digital Signatures Trust chief executive officer, compared federal approval of e-signatures to the creation of America's highways for traditional business. ``The fact that a lot of states had passed a lot of legislation was good, but on the other hand you ended up with a patchwork quilt of legislation that wasn't viable for interstate commerce,'' Lowry said. ``If we had to build the interstate highway system one county at a time or one state at a time, we'd probably never have an interstate highway system.'' ------ On the Net: House Commerce Committee: house.gov Utah's electronic signatures program and laws: cio.state.ut.us iLumin Corp.: ilumin.com Digital Signatures Trust: digsigtrust.com USERTrust Inc.: usertrust.com