Cylink to offer free SDK for embedding encryption security By Jessica Davis InfoWorld Electric Posted at 1:21 PM PT, Mar 29, 1996 Lobbing the latest bomb in a patent war over public key/private key encryption technology, Cylink Corp. will offer a Software Developers Kit (SDK) free-of-charge so that software companies can embed security and encryption technologies in their products. Cylink's move to offer Passport Gold for free follows a failed attempt in federal court to stop another company, RSA Data Security Inc., from selling a similar kit allegedly based on Cylink patents. The two companies have been engaged in a public relations feud, as well as a federal court patent dispute and IS mind share war over public key/private key/certificate authority encryption technology. Cylink lost the latest round in federal court in early March. Cylink and RSA both participated in the creation of public key/private key technologies through their partnership, Public Key Partners. PKP was formed in 1990 to establish security standards to license to software vendors. The partnership fell apart over the patent dispute. Cylink's PassportGold modules and APIs allow software developers to enable their applications to access national certificate authority electronic commerce and correspondence services that are planned by the U.S. Postal Service's ECS system and other commercial certificate authority facilities. Cylink expects its revenue stream to come from a series of products, existing and planned, that enhance the speed and effectiveness of such encryption technologies. Cylink has also announced SecureFrame, one of those products that provides a high-speed data encryption and security system for frame relay-based Wide Area Network environments. Working in conjunction with any public or private frame relay network, Secure Frame dynamically encrypts data while authenticating its source and destination, delivering throughput of up to 2.048 Mbps. SecureFrame is priced at $5,995 and will ship in April. Cylink also introduced SecureNode, an SNMP and TCP/IP-based data security hardware and software card for secure end-to-end data transfer and communication. The PC card is available now and provides network independent security management at the desktop level without hitting users with crippled CPU performance by acting as an "encryption and authentication accelerator." SecureNode cards for ISA or for PCI are priced at $595 and $695 respectively. The standalone software product is priced at $199. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Cylink can be reached at (800) 533-3958 or http://www.cylink.com/. Please direct your comments to InfoWorld Electric News Editor Dana Gardner. Copyright © 1996 InfoWorld Publishing Company