SECG have announced an Elliptic Curve Cryptography protocol test site and a test certificate authority, to promote interoperability and facilitate faster time to market.
In a press release on Certicom's website, the announcement dated 9 February states:
"Two new initiatives being spearheaded by the Standards for Efficient Cryptography Group (SECG) will help developers quickly and effectively test elliptic curve cryptography (ECC)-based implementations to facilitate faster time-to-market, according to Certicom, a founding member of SECG. Announced today, an ECC protocol test site and certificate authority (CA) will be available to SECG members in the spring of 2005.
"The SECG, an industry consortium, was founded in 1998 to develop commercial standards that facilitate the adoption of efficient cryptography and interoperability across a wide range of computing platforms. Where standards already exist, SECG may promote a refined, peer-reviewed profile of the broader standard to promote adoption and interoperability. The SECG also provides guidance to governments and organizations that are developing cryptographic standards.
"The initiatives announced today include:
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ECC protocol test site: developers will be able to vet their protocol implementations against reference implementations to test interoperability. Each test-such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) and S/MIME protocols-has been peer-reviewed by the leading ECC and protocol authorities.
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ECC-based certificate authority: the group will issue free ECC-based certificates for testing and prototyping.
"SECG enables access to proven and effective algorithms and protocols to secure a communication channel between computers. It is particularly important when communicating computers have limiting computational resources and when the bandwidth of the channel has limiting capacity. This is the case of important mailing applications where Pitney Bowes has established a strong leadership position worldwide. In addition SECG allows to have a common foundation for all communication security needs regardless of the limiting factors. This in turn enables interoperability between a broad variety of applications," said Dr. Leon Pintsov, Pitney Bowes Fellow and vice president, International Standards and Advanced Technology.
"ECC, a computationally efficient form of cryptography, is used in a growing number of sectors ranging from consumer electronics, embedded devices and semiconductors to government and financial services. Several changes have spurred the adoption of ECC. The first is the need for a stronger public-key cryptosystem that doesn't affect performance. For example, a high security encryption algorithm like the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) demands equivalent security for the accompanying digital signatures and key exchanges. To achieve this level of security without overwhelming the processors of most mobile devices, developers would need ECC, which offers equivalent security to other competing technologies but with much smaller key sizes. The second is the National Security Agency's recent decision to name ECC the public-key cryptosystem needed to meet the new, stronger security requirements under its crypto modernization program."
It will be no surprise to our readers that the main supporter of ECC algorithms is Certicom itself...
