25 June 1997: A Canadian company claims it has a unique product that can spur acceptance of biometric encryption. The Touchstone device, from Mytec Technologies Inc. of Toronto, includes a patented technology called Bioscrypt-a coded key or personal identification number that can be decoded only when the user's finger slides across a scanner. Mytec says it adds a layer of security to the fingerprint scanning methods typical at other vendors. "What we do is slide a finger across a scanner, which takes the information in the finger pattern and allows it to descramble the encrypted key," said George Tomko, chairman and co-founder of Mytec. The finger itself becomes essentially an encryption key and can be used in place of a personal identification number at a keyboard, automated teller machine, telephone, or to scramble data over the Internet. "With this kind of technology, everyone's finger is a potential encryption key," said Mr. Tomko. ---------- NetDox, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce has granted export approval for NetDox ePackage, a secure Internet document delivery service. This makes NetDox the first U.S. company authorized to offer businesses a global digital delivery service protected by 128-bit encryption over the Internet without providing clear text access to key recovery agents. ---------- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. decided Tuesday not to regulate stored-value cards. ---------- Two long reports on Netscape/Verisign's and Microsoft's approval for 128-bit products export. ---------- Above reports in full: http://jya.com/cn062597.txt ---------- For those who've not seen it we offer the bill introduced on June 19 by Representative Markey, "The "Communications Privacy and Consumer Empowerment Act": http://jya.com/hr1964.txt It has a provision for data security and pre-emption of government regulation of domestic encryption.