More on USPS electronic postmark
Rohit Khare (khare@w3.org)
Fri, 25 Oct 1996 15:16:04 -0400
> Business Wire, Ocotber 17, 1996.
>
>
> Cylink Corporation Partners with U.S. Postal Service to
> Build National Electronic Commerce System; Secure
> Electronic Services to Include Postmarking and
> Authentication for Legal/Medical Records, Tax Filings,
> Delivery Receipts, Etc.
>
>
> Sunnyvale, Calif. -- Cylink Corp., the world's leading
> provider of network security and management solutions since
> 1984, today announced its partnership with the United
> States Postal Service to build a national Electronic
> Commerce System (ECS).
>
> The ECS will be as easy-to-use and accessible to every
> American as First Class Mail is today. When operational
> next year, ECS will be the only system providing
> sender/recipient authentication, as well as correspondence
> privacy and protection to the average consumer as well as
> for businesses nationwide.
>
> Cylink has signed an agreement with the U.S. Postal Service
> to design, build and test the Postal ECS system. Cylink
> will provide a total security transaction infrastructure,
> including client software and distributed server
> processing. Cylink is the leader in developing scalable
> public key certificate management systems for robust
> transaction security and data protection.
>
> The U.S. Postal Service, through ECS, will inaugurate
> electronic postmarking (date and time stamping) later this
> year. This postmark will prove that a document existed at
> a particular point in time, has not been modified since,
> and will add protection against postal fraud. This service
> will be offered at roughly one-third the cost of today's
> First Class postage rates.
>
> In addition to postmarking, ECS will electronically protect
> and deliver time sensitive or legally binding documents
> such as notarized and legal documents, purchase orders,
> medical records, stock transaction receipts, bill payments,
> as well as other forms of private or proprietary
> correspondence.
>
> Postal ECS will also offer new electronic postal services
> such as identity authentication (using digital signatures
> and a Certificate Authority), verification of service and
> registered return receipt confirmation. Additional services
> will be added, such as the archival storage of transaction
> records and bonded documents.
>
> "The explosive growth of electronic communications,
> including the use of the Internet, intranets and electronic
> mail, has created a need to protect, validate and
> authenticate electronic transmissions using digital
> signatures and certificate authorities," said Dr. Jim
> Omura, Cylink's acting chief executive officer and chief
> technical officer. "Digital signature technology is the
> foundation for secure electronic transactions between the
> millions of people who will be conducting commerce on the
> Internet."
>
> Just as personal identification numbers are used to protect
> credit cards, Certificate Authorities are tomorrow's
> mechanism for protecting electronic commerce. Companies
> that provide services such as electronic banking, data
> interchanges and credit card purchases are well aware of
> the need for an advanced digital signature identification
> system. The Postal ECS will make available these security
> services to all its customers.
>
> "The U.S. Postal Service would be unable to provide its
> corporate and individual customers with state-of-the-art
> security services without using public key cryptography,"
> according to Paul Raines, U.S. Postal Service project
> manager for ECS. "We selected Cylink as our partner because
> it has been designing security systems since 1984,
> incorporating sophisticated encryption technologies that
> enable the deployment of digital signatures and
> certificates based on public key cryptography."
>
> The U.S. Postal Service has a 200-year history with the
> public as the reliable and trusted third party in sending
> and receiving correspondence.
>
> "We believe ECS is the logical extension of this role in
> the electronic/digital age, where increasing numbers of our
> customers are using the information superhighway," Raines
> said. With more than 40,000 locations nationwide, the U.S.
> Postal Service offers the public assurance of long-term
> stability and legally enforceable protection of its
> transactions.
>
> Cylink's technology will enable the U.S. Postal Service to
> guarantee to its customers the prevention of unauthorized
> access and misuse of information within the ECS system.
> This technology will identify the sender of the
> correspondence, protect it from unauthorized viewing or
> manipulation as it moves through public networks, and allow
> the electronic transmission of tamper-proof, non-forgeable
> documents.
>
> "Based on our successful history and over 11 years of
> expertise in developing certificate-based systems for many
> information network customers, Cylink is in a unique
> leadership position to design and implement certificate
> authority security management for other organizations that
> use the Internet and intranets for private and
> authenticated communications," Dr. Omura added.
>
> "Cylink intends to market its expertise in this category to
> commercial organizations and the worldwide network of PTTs
> [Posts, Telephones & Telegraphs, administered by
> governments] that will offer similar security management
> and electronic transaction services to their customers
> before the year 2000."
>
> Cylink Corp. is the recognized world leader in information
> security solutions, providing the most comprehensive
> portfolio of public-key cryptographic hardware and software
> products available today. Cylink's products enable secure
> data transmissions over local area networks (LANs), wide
> area networks (WANs), public packet switched networks such
> as the Internet, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and frame
> relay networks.
>
> Cylink, headquartered in Sunnyvale, is also the leader in
> outdoor spread spectrum microwave radio communications.
> Cylink's customers include national and multinational
> corporations, financial institutions and government
> organizations. For more information about Cylink and its
> products, call the fax-on-demand number 800/735-6614, or
> visit the company's Web site at http://www.cylink.com.