[48785] in Cypherpunks
Crypto-smart-card startup Inside Technologies
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Monta)
Wed Jan 31 03:35:09 1996
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 00:30:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Peter Monta <pmonta@qualcomm.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
There's an article in the January 29 _EE Times_ about a French
cryptographic-smart-card startup called Inside Technologies.
Tidbits:
..."In public-key cryptography, 512-bit keys are typical and
already vulnerable. So we are looking at 640-bit-long keys
supported by a scalable design."
..."Users want their own, custom algorithms, which can be
downloaded at the time of use".
..."The CLU [cryptographic logic unit] will operate at a
higher clock frequency than the RISC---60 MHz, in our
design---yielding 640-bit RSA decrypt in less than 50 ms".
The article goes on to say that they plan to both manufacture
smart cards, presumably for ecash and communications, and
license the design at the macrocell level, possibly for use
in embedded systems like mass storage.
By my count, six European companies mentioned, zero American.
Cheers,
Peter Monta pmonta@qualcomm.com
Qualcomm, Inc./Globalstar
