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   Tuesday January 28 9:52 AM EST 
   
VeriSign Commercializes New Encryption Standard

   SAN FRANCISCO - VeriSign, hoping to push some recent Internet
   encryption research into use, says it has begun commercializing
   several products based on new industry encryption standards.
   
   First it has taken the Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) standard
   developed last year by an industry group led by Visa and MasterCard
   and started online distribution of digital IDs based on SET to Visa
   customers.
   
   At a conference in San Francisco sponsored by RSA Data Security,
   VeriSign also demonstrated digital ID smart cards using a PC/SC
   standard to get access to Internet sites.
   
   In a partnership with Schlumberger, which also manufactures the smart
   cards, Litronic, which makes readers of smart cards, and Microsoft on
   whose Internet Explorer 3.0 browser the smart cards will work,
   VeriSign showed how the smart cards would be useful for providing
   secure access to restricted Internet sites, or for transactions on the
   Net.
   
   "We are starting to see the industry support this Visa- MasterCard
   initiative with a lot of product efforts," VeriSign Chief Executive
   Stratton Sclavos said about SET.
   
   Smart cards are credit card-shaped plastic cards that hold a microchip
   that endows them with computer intelligence and processing
   capabilities. As officials from VeriSign, Spyrus and others described
   here, an employee would use the smart card to get access from anywhere
   to a corporate network and have all the key personal information as if
   the computer was programmed for that person's use. Likewise, a
   consumer might use the smart card in many different sites to do
   Internet-based transactions from kiosks or ATMs and so on.
   
   Sclavos forecast that Internet transactions requiring security will
   gain consumer acceptance in 1998 or 1999.
   
   He said 1997 will be the year that security apparatus is installed or
   deployed by merchants, banks and other companies. Then once deployed,
   consumers will start using it about a year later.
   
   Security remains a key concern of consumers about electronic commerce
   and Internet transactions, he said.
   
   VeriSign also announced its so-called private label digital ID program
   in which it is making encryption products for large customer-oriented
   companies, like brokerage firms, to distribute to customers for access
   to online accounts.
   
   And it announced a new service for the Electronic Data Interchange
   market that allows EDI to take place over the Internet instead of
   proprietary networks.
   
   Mountain View, Calif-based VeriSign considers itself the leader in
   providing digital certification for Internet access and electronic
   commerce. It has issued digital IDs based on other encryption
   technology it developed to about 500,000 people and on 14,000 Web
   sites, it added.
   
   Copyright, Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved
   
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