As the communication volume between individuals, corporations and organisations steadily increase on a world wide basis, the need for good encryption is becoming a vital issue to each and everyone of us. Governments around the world are involved in deep, dark discussions regarding what their dear citizens shall be allowed to do and not, inventing laws prohibiting the use of strong encryption - for the normal citizen - or trying to forbid the export of encryption algorithms and accompanying software.

Does the next millenium come with a strong odor of Orwell's 1984?
Can it really be true that you are not allowed to use the algorithm of your own choice?

The answers to these two questions are "maybe yes" respectively "definitely yes": The Land of the Free tries feverishly to bann any and all export of more or less secure and useful encryption, France is already punishing its citizens with penalty charges of up to 200,000 FF if one uses these oh so dangerous things, and Germany is debating how far one shall push "das große Lauschangriff" [e] ("the big eavesdropping").

This is yet another small wake up call - privacy is becoming a very dynamic and flexible term in the age of communication.

Ok, that's the bad news. The good news is that there are many people out here who work against any stupid national encryption laws. Why don't you have a visit at the 4th most linked site on the web... The Electronic Frontier Foundation [e]. The well renown cryptography consultant and author of the great book Applied Cryptoghraphy [e], Bruce Schneier has his own site [e]. You should check this one out too.

You can download and install the strong encryption software PGP [e] (Pretty Good Privacy), meanwhile coming in Version 6 for Windoze (international version) - and use it in most European countries legally - it's for free and works very well.

If you're interested in what's hot regarding encryption on the net, you should check out EFF's hot list [e].

Hiding information in images, "steganography", is mega in. Check this out [e].

Back to history. Sine I have a passion for the old encryption machine commonly known under the name of Enigma, here is a description of it [e]. There is also some interesting information about the enigma [e] which was kept on the captured U-505.

http://www.securitymanagement.com [e]
Security Management - The American Security Magazine. This site is a must see - if you strangely enough haven't stumbled over it yet.

http://www.keyless.com [e]
Essex Electronics Inc. A tad empty, but some short info.

http://www.geoffrey-ind.com [e]
Geoffrey Industries Inc. PC based systems. Quite an "american touch" to the products.

http://www.kastle.com [e]
Kastle Systems Inc. Office Building Systems. Page relates to different installations done by Kastle in the USA.

http://www.plexa.com [e]
Plexa's home page. Currently in italian only. English available soon.

http://www.securitron.com [e]
Securitron Magnalock Corp. Access control items.