[Copyright 1994 by Newsbytes. Reposted WITH permission from the ClariNet Electronic Newspaper newsgroups clari.nb.govt, clari.nb.top. For more info on ClariNet, write to info@clarinet.com or phone 1-800-USE-NETS. May 18, 1994] Posted-Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 16:44:31 -0400 Path: netnews.upenn.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!lll-winken.llnl.gov!looking!newsbytes From: newsbytes@clarinet.com (NB-WAS) Newsgroups: clari.nb.govt,clari.nb.top Subject: ****Customs Goes For Encryption -- And It's Not Clipper 07/11/94 Keywords: Bureau-WAS, NEWS Date: 11 Jul 94 19:19:57 GMT Approved: cn@clarinet.com Xref: netnews.upenn.edu clari.nb.govt:1073 clari.nb.top:1974 WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1994 JUL 11 (NB) -- The US Customs Service has picked Information Resource Engineering (IRE) of Baltimore, Md., to supply encryption technology to protect Drug Enforcement Agency information traveling on telephone and computer networks in the Pacific Rim. But Customs won't be using the Clipper encryption technology the Clinton Administration and the National Security Agency is pushing. "Clipper simply is not available," Anthony Caputo, chief executive officer of IRE told Newsbytes. "Clipper has been approved for government agencies, but there just isn't much equipment out there yet." So the US Customs will be using IRE's technology, which uses its proprietary Atlas encryption algorithm and meets the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Digital Encryption Standard or DES for short. "DES products are the only thing you can buy today," said Caputo. "We expect to see Clipper become fairly widely used and we will have Clipper versions of our systems available when that happens." IRE was founded in 1983 by former crytologists at the National Security Agency who wanted to develop technology to make encryption easy and inexpensive. The company has focused on the banking industry, providing security for corporate wire transfers. Caputo says that Citibank, J.P. Morgan & Co., Chase Manhattan, Bankers Trust and Banc One are using IRE systems, as are AT&T and the US Treasury Department. "The government is far ahead of private industry on electronic commerce," Caputo said. "Banks are just getting around to it. One way people will use the information superhighway is for electronic commerce, and we are the best positioned company in the world for this development." (Kennedy Maize/19940711/Contact: Anthony Caputo 410-931-7500)