Fax Fools US Espionage

[nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)]

"Foolproof" Encrypted Fax System

                         
Derby, England, 6 February 1996 -- Wordcraft, the
Derby-based software house, has announced that its
proposals for a "foolproof" secure fax transmission
system will be considered by the International
Telecommunications Union's meeting in Geneva,
Switzerland, next week. 

According to Mike Lake, the company's managing director,
Wordcraft has been working closely with a number of other
companies, notably Chantilly (another UK firm) on the
proposals, which will be considered alongside a competing
set from French and German companies.

Lake told Newsbytes that the Wordcraft system is known as
Automatic Fax Services (AFS) and consists of four
elements: authentication, message confirmation,
integrated encryption, and a certificate of receipt. 

The authentication element of AFS revolves the generation
of the fax device's serial number and unique transaction
number for each fax transmission. Message confirmation is
generated by the distant fax device, while the
certificate of receipt is printed after confirmation 
is received.

"Existing fax transmission reports are just that -- a
note of transmission. AGS creates a new document, a
certificate of receipt, which proves that a fax was
transmitted," Lake said.

The encryption system, meanwhile, uses a proprietary, but
open systems standard of encryption, using a one-time
passkey, which is transmitted by the sending fax device
in a secure manner.

"This contrasts with the French/German system which is
based on RSA's private and public key system. That system
is flawed, since it relies on the US Government licensing
a manufacturer to use the algorithm, something that the
Government is unlikely to do with, for example, a
Japanese fax manufacturer," Lake explained.

According to Lake, even if the ITU Study Group 8 approves
the French/German secure fax system next week, no major
fax vendor is likely to implement such a system on their
fax machines if the US Government is allowed to licence
each fax machine for use.

"The AFS system is secure, yet does not need the
permission of anybody to use it. In that sense, it's a
more global system," he said.

So what does Wordcraft get out of the proposed standard?
According to Lake, the company is offering a series of C
language routines for inclusion in the firmware of fax
machines, and fax software drivers. These routines, he
said, allow driver programs to be coded very easily. It
is the modest licence fees for this software with which 
Wordcraft is hoping to recoup its investment.

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