Business Wire, August 15, 1996 Motorola and Certicom sign joint technology agreement; Certicom's High Efficiency Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem to be applied to Motorola's Wireless products based on Motorola's FLEX family of paging protocols Toronto -- Certicom Corp. and Motorola Inc. jointly announced today that they have signed an agreement to apply Certicom's Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC) technology to Motorola's family of wireless products. The initial focus of the cooperative effort will be to investigate the enhancement of the existing security of Motorola's FLEX(tm) family of paging protocols. The wide-ranging agreement includes the development of ECC implementation techniques and integrated circuit architectures. The alliance between Certicom and Motorola is in response to market demand for wireless communications products that better combat fraud and unauthorized interception. "This project is a major milestone in the deployment of ECC into the emerging wireless industry and we are excited to be working with the market leader," said Gary Hughes, President and CEO of Certicom. "This alliance will ensure that ECC plays a central role in the growing wireless infrastructure market." "ECC has the potential to become an essential component of our wireless product portfolio in the future, and will give us a leadership position in the area of security," said Walt Davis, Senior Vice President of the Technical Staff in Motorola's Messaging Systems Products Group. "Motorola has been working with Certicom over the past two years, and we are pleased to broaden our relationship with them." Dr. Scott Vanstone, Certicom's Chief Cryptographer, added, "Certicom is currently completing an ECC software toolkit and this project will eventually enable Certicom to add a critical integrated circuit component to our portfolio of core technology." Digital information security comprises a variety of technologies to prevent the unauthorized disclosure, alteration or removal of information; to control access to information moving across networks; and to verify the integrity of electronic files and user identity. These technologies require encryption and digital signatures based on public-key cryptography. The Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem is the world's most efficient public-key system, providing the highest strength-per-bit of any known public-key system and minimizing the requirement for large key lengths. ECC offers high efficiency and low overhead for encryption, digital signatures and key management, making it an ideal choice for the most demanding environments. The FLEX(tm) family of paging protocols, which includes FLEX(tm), ReFLEX(tm) and InFLEXion(tm), is the de facto standard for high-speed paging. It has been adopted by 70 percent of the world's largest markets, including major operators in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Asia. The FLEX(tm) protocol has also been adopted in Japan, and by China's Ministry of Post and Telecommunications as their nationwide, high-speed paging standard. Motorola is one of the world's leading providers of wireless communications, semiconductors and advanced electronic systems and services. Major equipment businesses include paging and data communications, personal communications, cellular telephone two-way radio, automotive, defense and space electronics and computers. Motorola semiconductors power communication devices, computers and millions of consumer products. Motorola's 1995 sales were $27 billion. Certicom is a developer of information security products and cryptographic technologies and is the leader in implementations of the Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem. The Company specializes in applications where the combination of cryptographic strength and high efficiency are critical. Certicom's primary markets are in wireless, smart cards, banking and electronic commerce over the Internet. Certicom shares are quoted on the Canadian Dealing Network under the symbol "CERT." Editor's Note: Visit Certicom's home page at www.certicom.ca. Motorola's FLEX protocol information is available at www.mot.com/FLEX. Motorola, FLEX, ReFLEX and InFLEXion are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola, Inc. Certicom is a registered trademark of Certicom Corp. [End] ---------- Newsbytes, August 15, 1996 UK Company Unveils E-Mail Encryption Software By Sylvia Dennis Bournemouth, Hampshire, England -- Pow! Distribution has taken the wraps off PrivaSuite, an e-mail encryption package that works as a drop-in to many existing e-mail applications software. According to Daniel Power, a spokesperson for the company, the L69.95 package uses a 40-bit DES (data encryption standard) encryption system, the most powerful that is allowed for export outside of the US on an unlicensed basis. A demo version of the package, limited to a maximum file size of 30,000 bytes, is available for download at http://www.pow-dist.co.uk/aliroo/aliroo.html. Pow! Distribution is handling the UK distribution of PrivaSuite. In the US, the package is priced at $129,95 and is sold through Aliroo America, the subsidiary of Aliroo in Israel. PrivaSuite functions as a printer driver with an e-mail application. An e-mail package routes the message and its files to the printer, with PrivaSuite intercepting the "LPT" command string. PrivaSuite then automatically encrypts the outbound file(s) and sends them on their way transparently to the user. Inbound mail items can either be handled automatically or on demand, as the user requires. According to Power, because PrivaSuite can handle almost any file format, encrypting the file using the DES algorithm, it can also be set up to handle fax image files. In use, PrivaSuite is claimed to run under Windows on an 80386-based or faster PC with at least four megabytes (MB) of memory and 2MB of hard disk space. Each document image page (8.5- by 11-inches) is split into around 4,000 squares of around 16 by 32 pixels each. These squares are then shuffled around using the DES algorithm to make the output encrypted image unreadable. The package was developed by Aliroo, an Israeli software house that specializes in document security products. Aliroo was founded in 1995 by ex-Israeli Military Intelligence officer Itzhak Pomerantz. "The features that set PrivaSuite apart are its seamless integration with any Windows application," Pomerantz said. "This means that individuals with different e-mail packages can send each other encrypted messages without being concerned by compatibility issues." He added that almost any PC user running Windows can now quickly encrypt any file, e-mail message, or fax, to ensure prying eyes do not intercept sensitive information. PrivaSuite consists of three modules: PrivaMail for e-mail encryption, PrivaFile for file encryption, and PrivaSoft for fax encryption. All the modules are claimed to share the same user friendly interface and the same private, secure, key book. PrivaSuite can be called on with a single mouse click or key combination, from any application, and be applied to any segment of any document to encrypt or decrypt it. In everyday use, PrivaMail is activated using the key strokes CTRL CC. Users can highlight whole documents or just areas of text for encryption. The key book can be administered by a network administrator and all key codes can have a clue associated with it, which Aliroo claims makes it unnecessary for the key code to be communicated to the recipient. PrivaFile, meanwhile, uses the same key book and can be used to compress files as well as just encrypting them using a Windows File Manager like interface. Last, but not least, PrivaSoft acts like a printer driver and intercepts the file before being sent to either a printer or fax driver and encrypts an area of the document, allowing the recipient to see the title or header details of the document to be faxed. Pow! Distribution's Web site is at http://www.pow-dist.co.uk. Pow! Distribution, 44-1202-716726, Internet e-mail dpowera@cix.compulink.co.uk; Aliroo America, 714-495-9491) [End]