Internet/intranet software player Frontier Technologies Corp of Mequon, Wisconsin has announced the immediate availability of e- Lock, which it describes as the first complete public-key security for Windows 95 and NT. e-Lock is aimed at creating, using and managing secure applications for intranets and the Internet. Frontier Technologies is one of that band of companies that lost its way in the late eighties, investing heavily in OSI protocols (X.400, FTAM and TP4) when the rest of the industry went TCP/IP. It’s since refashioned itself as an intranet/Internet software company specialising in security. e- Lock is actually a family of products comprising e-Cert, a certificate issuing and management system; e-Mail, an S/MIME electronic mail application that permits digital signing and encryption of email messages; and e-Sign, a digital signing and encryption application for securing documents and files. e-Lock is claimed to support the following industry standard: S/MIME, SSL, X.509 v1-3, and PKCS no’s 7, 10 and 11. e-Cert is for companies building a Public-Key Infrastructure PKI, and using applications that need public-key certificates – like browsers or electronic mail. Frontier claims e-Cert enables the issue, revocation, renewal and management of public key certificates. e- mail is said to identify the origin and guarantee the integrity of mail messages on the internet or intranet. Finally e-Sign digitally signs documents and files to securely identify their origin, and again guarantee their integrity, Frontier claims. E- Cert goes for $800, e-Mail for $50, and e-Sign for $100. Other products in the company’s portfolio include Intranet Genie (CI No 2,862), CyberSearch, and SuperTCP Suite.
