"Foolproof" Encrypted Fax System Derby, England, 6 February 1996 -- Wordcraft, the Derby-based software house, has announced that its proposals for a "foolproof" secure fax transmission system will be considered by the International Telecommunications Union's meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, next week. According to Mike Lake, the company's managing director, Wordcraft has been working closely with a number of other companies, notably Chantilly (another UK firm) on the proposals, which will be considered alongside a competing set from French and German companies. Lake told Newsbytes that the Wordcraft system is known as Automatic Fax Services (AFS) and consists of four elements: authentication, message confirmation, integrated encryption, and a certificate of receipt. The authentication element of AFS revolves the generation of the fax device's serial number and unique transaction number for each fax transmission. Message confirmation is generated by the distant fax device, while the certificate of receipt is printed after confirmation is received. "Existing fax transmission reports are just that -- a note of transmission. AGS creates a new document, a certificate of receipt, which proves that a fax was transmitted," Lake said. The encryption system, meanwhile, uses a proprietary, but open systems standard of encryption, using a one-time passkey, which is transmitted by the sending fax device in a secure manner. "This contrasts with the French/German system which is based on RSA's private and public key system. That system is flawed, since it relies on the US Government licensing a manufacturer to use the algorithm, something that the Government is unlikely to do with, for example, a Japanese fax manufacturer," Lake explained. According to Lake, even if the ITU Study Group 8 approves the French/German secure fax system next week, no major fax vendor is likely to implement such a system on their fax machines if the US Government is allowed to licence each fax machine for use. "The AFS system is secure, yet does not need the permission of anybody to use it. In that sense, it's a more global system," he said. So what does Wordcraft get out of the proposed standard? According to Lake, the company is offering a series of C language routines for inclusion in the firmware of fax machines, and fax software drivers. These routines, he said, allow driver programs to be coded very easily. It is the modest licence fees for this software with which Wordcraft is hoping to recoup its investment. --