Snakeoil?
[Smells like it. --Perry]
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2000/1110/fin10.htm
Friday, November 10, 2000
SECURITY/Jamie Smyth: A Guersey-based multimillionaire inventor, who
claims to have developed the world's first "unhackable" communications
security system, is seeking potential buyers in the Republic. Dr
William Johnson, a tax exile with more than 100 registered patents to
his name, has sent a negotiating team to the Republic to contact
companies who may be interested in purchasing the licensing rights to
the security system, E-Larm.
The system is an encryption formula based on chaotic mathematical
equations that do not follow the random number standards of the
industry standard, public key infrastructure.
The system works as part of a secure private network between users. It
is geared towards the business-to-business e-commerce market and is
targeting the financial services and banking industries. E-Larm was
developed by a team including Prof Jonathan Blackledge, professor of
applied mathematics at De Montford University, Leicester, and Dr
Johnson's company Guernsey Secure E-Commerce Ltd.
"E-Larm works on a method of creating non-stationary codes," says Dr
Johnson. "No matter how powerful the super computer, it cannot break
it as if it was a static system."
The system was originally conceived as a means of protecting banknotes
from being copied but has been developed to provide secure
communications, according to Dr Johnson. He says the consortium that
developed the E-Larm system are targeting the Republic for sales due
to the Government's decision to pass the E-Commerce Act this year.
The system may run foul of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill
(RIP) in Britain, which, if passed, would insist that security
services should be able to decrypt communications networks to preserve
national security.
Prof Blackledge says the ELarm team will be able to allow a third
party to tap into the system as data is sent between users but it can
not be decrypted after the event.
"This could cause us legal problems in the UK," he says.
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"Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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