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From: outer@utcsri.UUCP (Richard Outerbridge)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: New PubKey System Coming
Message-ID: <3859@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Jan-87 17:35:47 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.3859
Posted: Thu Jan  1 17:35:47 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Jan-87 20:35:39 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 47

From the Report On Business section of the >Globe and Mail<,
Thursday, January 1, 1987, page B5:

	Coding chip devised in Waterloo
	by David Helwig
	Special to The Globe and Mail

		Three professors from the University of Waterloo are 
	preparing to market a microchip that ensures the privacy of 
	digitized information.
		Gordon Agnew of the university's department of electrical 
	engineering, and mathematicians Ron Mullin and Scot Vanstone, have 
	joined with graduate student Ivan Onyzschuk to form Cryptech Inc. 
	of Waterloo, Ontario.
		The company's device, known as a public key cryptosystem, 
	has been produced in prototype form and should be ready for marketing
	by this summer, Mr. Vanstone said.
		The patented system is designed to secure computer data 
	banks, electronic mail and digital telephone communications.
		It is simpler and many times faster than rival public key 
	systems expected to become available soon, the company said.
		Conventional cryptographic systems use an electronic "key" 
	to lock messages so that they can only be read by people who have
	a matching key.
		Public key systems have two keys - one for encrypting the 
	message and another for decrypting it.
		The encrypting key can be made public by publishing it in 
	a directory, but the decryption key is kept on a microchip possessed 
	only by the owner.
		It is virtually impossible for an outsider to break the 
	decrypting key, which consists of a binary string of more than 1,000 
	characters, Mr. Vanstone said.
		"It would take more than a billion years, working with the 
	fastest computers available, to break just one key," he said.
		Banks could use the technology to ensure the authenticity
	of messages.  It can produce digital "signatures" that cannot be
	forged and could be used for electronic processing of contracts
	and financial transactions, the company said.
		Microchips containing the Cryptech system will be made by 
	Calmos Systems Inc. of Ottawa.
		Cryptech is being established with assistance from Robert 
	Nally, the University of Waterloo's commercial development officer.
	The university will get royalties on sales of the chips.
	--- 30 ---
-- 
Richard Outerbridge		 (416) 961-4757
Payload Deliveries:	N 43 39'36", W 79 23'42", Elev. 106.47m.