There's an article in the January 29 _EE Times_ about a French cryptographic-smart-card startup called Inside Technologies. Tidbits: ..."In public-key cryptography, 512-bit keys are typical and already vulnerable. So we are looking at 640-bit-long keys supported by a scalable design." ..."Users want their own, custom algorithms, which can be downloaded at the time of use". ..."The CLU [cryptographic logic unit] will operate at a higher clock frequency than the RISC---60 MHz, in our design---yielding 640-bit RSA decrypt in less than 50 ms". The article goes on to say that they plan to both manufacture smart cards, presumably for ecash and communications, and license the design at the macrocell level, possibly for use in embedded systems like mass storage. By my count, six European companies mentioned, zero American. Cheers, Peter Monta pmonta@qualcomm.com Qualcomm, Inc./Globalstar