Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Hide & Seek - The Copy Protection Solution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IPOJunkie who wrote (577)	8/12/1998 7:06:00 PM
From: Enam Luf	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 690

IPO, JAWZ is one of just many small startups promoting their solution as "the strongest encryption available". To the best of my knowledge, they are mostly hype filled nonsense and will not come to anything in this industry. Most promote themselves by offering $1,000,000 contests for anyone who can break their system. However, in truth, it is not that difficult to create "unbreakable" encryption (actually, one time pad encryption is the only true [mathematically] unbreakable encryption, but its implementation in the real world is extremely difficult). The real problems lie in key storage, key management, effiency, and performance. The is nothing wrong with the current encryption standards (when properly implemented), and they will likely remain standards for many years to come (with lengthening keys to provide higher security). However, Elliptical curve cryptography is gaining some ground in this area and could steal some share from DES based on the fact that it is a more efficient technique. In general, things move very slowly in this industry. The government used has used the same DES algorithm for something like 20 years now, and is just now going out to look for a replacement. The new standard will probably be safe enough to last through the next 20 years. The only company i've come across that is developing something new that i thought was interesting is a company called Meganet (Clo might like them, they are small and private). But unfortunately, I don't know enough about the math to decipher whether or not it is for real, and there is not enough info available on their technology for those who do know the math to tell whether or not it could work. Check out there website, it is interesting, but well above my head. However, even companies with good solutions are gonna have hard time breaking into this business, IMO, as the leading players are very entrenched in the market. Rainbow and a few other companies also make very high-end security hardware for the government, but most of that stuff is classified, so who knows what they are developing.