I'm suprised no one has pointed out that this could mean all confidential communication with the government, such as paying your taxes, will require a $95 Fortezza card. Of course, you could then use that card to encrypt your credit card numbers and email, as well. Label this Clipper IV. Adam anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote: | | | Washington Post, May 20, 1996 | | Feds on the Web | | Federal agencies' efforts to link up with the citizenry over | the World Wide Web take a step forward today. Officials plan | to announce a pilot program in which 1,000 to 2,000 people | will try their hands at secure Web transactions with federal | agencies. It's set to start later this month. | | The vision for the "Paperless Transactions for the Public | Project": a taxpayer files a return to the Internal Revenue | Service over Web links that use advanced cryptography to | confirm to the agency that the return's really coming from the | right party. Or, a retiree goes into a Social Security | Administration computer to check benefit information. | | VIPs, civil servants and ordinary folks are to be issued | special "key cards" to take part in the test, which will use | cryptography from Frontier Technologies Corp., a Wisconsin | networking company. Officials promise the vision is not that | far away. | | -- | | | -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume