TEPR

Security

Lots of attention was given to security, including biometrics - fingerprints, voice identification, etc.

PKI, or Public Key Infrastructure, was a prominent topic. PKI addresses four important security needs:

Confidentiality

encryption of information to keep wrong eyes from reading

Integrety

signing information to ensure it's not changed

Authentication

signing information to ensure it's from the sender

Non-Repudiation

Sendor signs with date/time stamp to so receiver knows is authentic, then receiver sends receipt with date/time stamp to show was received. Then neither party can claim the communication wasn't made.

See the Public Key Encryption page for details on how PKI works.