RSA Data Security Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of cryptography giant Security Dynamics Technologies Inc has licensed J/Crypto, a Java encryption library developed by Dublin, Ireland-based Baltimore Technologies Ltd, for an undisclosed sum. The company said it regards Europe as a center for innovation and achievement in cryptography and intends to pursue additional alliances in the region. RSA plans to use the technology as a component in its JSAFE product which it is touting as a solution for creating a new line of security-enabled Java-based electronic commerce applications for use over the Internet. The company claims JSAFE will enable Java developers to build more secure applets that support public key encryption with privacy and authentication features; crucial requirements for electronic commerce applications. RSA says it will be targeting the product at the company’s traditional licensee base of independent software vendors and developers. Tony Seba, director of strategic planning at RSA, said it had chosen Baltimore as one of the few companies with proven experience in both Java and cryptography. The company has been developing JSAFE for a while but decided to use outside technology because of concerns about time to market; but adds exactly how it will be used is yet to be determined by our engineers. So what’s new here? The sand box approach is great but that doesn’t give you all the things that Java can [give you], says Seba; Our product together with a sandbox will give the functionality that Java currently can’t, he claims. Baltimore maintains it is the first company to develop professional cryptography libraries written in 100% Java, adding that this is the first time it has licensed J/Crypto to a reseller. However, the company said it will be using J/Crypto in its own secure Web browsing and Java communications system, WebSecure. The product, currently in beta testing and due for release in mid-July will be sold to software developers who have identified applications in trading systems, Internet banking and on-line sales.
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