\"Concryption\"

[Anonymous]

Cambridge, MA, Jan 3 -- Security Dynamics plans to
license "Concryption," a just patented technology
combining encryption and compression, to outside
companies for use with a variety of security and
compression protocols, revealed Kenneth Weiss, chairman
and chief technical officer.  

"It is my belief that Concryption will solve the two
biggest problems that exist today: the need for privacy
and more available bandwidth," Weiss said.  

"Compression has been catching on. It takes less time
today to send a whole page of fax than it used to, for
example, and part of that is because of better data
compression. But encryption has not caught on in the way
it should, because of time and expense issues and the
hassles of key management."  

Still, though, available bandwidth for data storage and
transmission is diminishing all the time, in arenas
ranging from fax to satellite technology, networked
information, and the World Wide Web, according to the
company chairman.  

Compression will become an even more significant
requirement in the future, with an anticipated explosion
of multimedia applications, he predicted.  

Security Dynamics has been awarded US Patent No.
5,479,512 for Concryption. The Cambridge,
Massachusetts-based company now holds a total of 14
patents from the US Patent Office, most related to its
"core business" of computer security, he reported.  

One of the company's other patents, for instance, is for
a biometric technology designed to enable "voice
fingerprinting." Security Dynamics also produces the
SecureID Card, ACE/Server, and ACM series of user
authentication products.  

Security Dynamics' newly patented Concryption technology
is based on mathematical synergies between the processes
of encrypting and compressing data. Both procedures call
for analyzing arrays of binary patterns, "seeing where
the spaces are," and then applying rules to the data.  

Weiss added that encryption and compression are both
highly intensive in terms of CPU (central processor unit)
cycles and disk accesses. As a result, he asserted,
integrating the two technologies into a "single set of
operations" will bring cost reductions in CPU usage as
well as faster encryption times.  

"The time to compress might increase a little bit, but on
the other hand, the time to encrypt goes to zero.
Whatever the disk accesses are for compression, there
would be no other disk accesses for encryption."  

Security Dynamics sees Concryption as a "concept pattern"
suited to use with a variety of data types, network
transports, and security protocols, according to Weiss.
"This is a new enabling technology that we believe should
have an impact on the way information is communicated in
the future."  

The company intends to work with outside licensees on
integrating different compression and encryption methods.
"Big users have already optimized compression for their
unique technologies. We use a different form of
compression for fax than we would for satellite data or
TV pictures. Beyond that, companies might employ
different compression algorithms. Similarly, people like
to have control over the type of encryption used," Weiss
maintained.  

Although forthcoming multimedia applications will require
much greater compression than text, conventional needs
for "privacy" may not be as high, since many video
offerings of the future will be geared to entertainment,
Weiss acknowledged.  

"But we will probably be seeing 'economic privacy,' " the
company chairman noted, pointing to a trend, already well
established in the cable TV industry, toward providing
"high demand" fare such as first-run movies only on
separately priced, encrypted, "premium channels."  

Contact: Security Dynamics, 617-547-7820