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Australian Gov't Offers $560k Cryptographic Protocol For Free

mask.of.sanity writes "Australia's national welfare agency will release its 'unbreakable' AU$560,000 smart card identification protocol for free. The government agency wants other departments and commercial businesses to adopt the Protocol for Lightweight Authentication of ID (PLAID), which withstood three years of design and testing by Australian and American security agencies. The agency has one of Australia's most advanced physical and logical converged security systems: staff can access doors and computers with a single centrally-managed identity card, and user identities can be automatically updated as employees leave, are recruited or move to new departments. PLAID, which will be available soon, is to be used in the agency's incoming fleet of contact-less smartcards that are currently under trial by staff. It will replace existing identity cards that operate on PKI encryption."

5 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Surprisingly sedate acronym by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Somehow that makes it more sinister than calling it "RAZORBAK" or "AOK JINGOSIM".

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    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  2. Yeah Right... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given Australian government's views on privacy, I wonder when the back door will be discouvered? Or is looking for it agianst the law?

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    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  3. Mmmh by Britz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Here, have my lock and key. Nobody will be able to get into your home. Except, maybe, me :-)"

  4. I laugh ... by Morphine007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... when an organization claims that they're going to provide something that's unbreakable

    The claim is usually an open invitation to reduce the "unbreakable" object to ashes.

  5. Re:contactless smart cards are the way to go by profplump · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The government never issued SSN with the intent of being a universal identifier.