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November 10, 1997, Section: Internet Reseller

RSA To Merge Its E-Mail Standard With Government'

By Charlotte Dunlap

San Francisco -- RSA Data Security Inc. will unveil the merger of Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) with the government's own secure E-mail standard, Message Security Protocol (MSP)

Message Security Protocol is a National Security Agency standard that is used by the federal government to encrypt electronic messages.

RSA, Redwood City, Calif., has been heavily lobbying the industry and standards bodies to accept S/MIME as the standard technology used to securely send E-mail across the Internet and other IP networks.

Industry criticism, by competitors such as Pretty Good Privacy, has erupted in the marketplace over the fact that RSA charges licensing fees for the security technology, alleging that it is therefore inappropriate to be used as an industry standard.

RSA counters that other technologies certified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body are owned by a particular vendor and not available to the public domain except through licensing arrangements.

A source close to RSA said the company will detail the plan to merge S/MIME and Message Security Protocol during its conference, held here, to promote the S/MIME technology.

Fifteen other vendors will join RSA, including Netscape Communications Corp., Mountain View, Calif., Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., and Lotus Development Corp., Cambridge, Mass.

RSA also was to unveil at the conference its formation of an S/MIME consortium in Japan. It also was to announce RSA's formal submission of S/MIME to the IETF and the availability of S/MIME, which can be downloaded through the RSA Web site free for 30 days.