Cylink Corporation is evidently delighted to have been chosen as the encryption software provider for a Lotus/IBM reference implementation. Lotus and IBM have written Jonah PKIX as a proof of concept for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)’s Public Key Infrastructure for X.509 certificates (PKIX). As described in working drafts by the IETF, PKIX attempts to standardize how digital certificates are issued, validated, revoked and renewed. If it becomes widely deployed, different certificate systems should be able to exchange information and cross-certify one another’s certificates, making the process of securing online transactions considerable more open and vendor- independent than it is today. The source code for Lotus/IBM’s Jonah PKIX is now available online through the MIT web site (http://www.mit.edu/pfl). Also available is Cylink’s Foundation Suites cryptographic toolkit, which, the company’s lawyers hasten to point out, is not being given away but made available under license for no cost. By doing this, Cylink, which makes most of its money through services, hopes to catch the PKIX wave early enough to reap generous profits.
