2002

Contacts:

Mike Yaffe NTRU Cryptosystems, Inc. (781) 418-2525 myaffe@ntru.com		Dave Bowker or Alicia Allen Schwartz Communications (781) 684-0770 ntru@schwartz-pr.com
Geraldine Sauniere INSIDE +33 4 42 39 63 00 gsauniere@insidefr.com

Inside Contactless Selects NTRU for Contactless Smart Card Security

Contactless Technology Pioneer Licenses NTRU's GenuID Solution to Enable Strong, Fast Security for All Inside Contactless Chips

Burlington, Mass. - October 28, 2002 - NTRU, the only provider of strong security that fits everywhere, today announced that Inside Contactless has licensed NTRU's GenuID product family to secure its next generation microprocessors for contactless smart cards and readers. Inside's 16-bit RISC processor represents a new generation of functional capability for contactless smart cards. Inside's breakthrough 16-bit RISC processor chip set will be higher performance and less expensive than competitive 8-bit processor applications and, by integrating NTRU GenuID, more secure.

"Because they are uniting two technologies that were engineered and designed with contactless applications in mind, Inside and NTRU are perfect partners for innovative development in this market," said Michael Liard of Venture Development Corporation. "The combination of Inside's 16-bit next-generation chip set and NTRU's high-performance, small footprint security represents an important step in the effort to bring next generation contactless applications to market. This partnership will enable customers to securely deploy and use the multi-application devices that are currently in demand for ID cards, transit, payments and access control."

The combination of sophisticated security and 16-bit processor performance creates a powerful solution for a wide range of applications, including identity cards, prepaid transport cards, physical and logical access control, loyalty schemes and financial services. NTRU GenuID brings a new level of trusted information exchange to those applications by delivering high-speed, small-footprint security. These advantages, coupled with the fact that NTRU GenuID does not require a cryptographic co-processor, expand market opportunities for manufacturers like Inside Contactless and enable them to develop secure contactless applications. Inside Contactless is the only company that is fully concentrating on the contactless market, developing chips and readers for the smart card and electronic identification markets.

"NTRU is the only solution that makes it easy and cost-effective to put strong, public key security on space and power consumption constrained chips for contactless cards," said Jacek Kowalski, CEO of Inside. "The addition of fast, powerful public key security, combined with longer read ranges, will provide a tremendous competitive advantage to us, and unmatched trust and convenience to our customers. We intend to generalize the use of public key cryptography within all the markets that currently use secret key-based algorithms like DES."

Unlike other competitive smart card processors, which are general-purpose products that have been adapted for use in smart card and contactless card applications, Inside's new generation 16-bit processor chip is the first processor designed specifically to meet the needs of contactless cards and readers. The NTRU GenuID product family ensures that the information stored on these smart cards, including pictures, names and other relevant personal or financial data, is transmitted securely and has not been altered in any way.

"While RFID and contactless smart card applications have great potential to make life easier, simpler and safer, security and key management environments remain a missing link in their successful adoption. Users require a trusted and largely integrated environment for financial transactions and personal data access," said Ed King, vice president of sales for NTRU. "Strong security and fast performance are necessary for widespread adoption of contactless, while low cost is essential for high-volume applications. Historically, it was impossible to satisfy both requirements; the high cost and power consumption of cryptographic co-processors severely restricted adoption. By incorporating NTRU GenuID, Inside brings strong security to the contactless market at price points never before possible."

About NTRU GenuID
NTRU GenuID is the only public key security solution designed specifically for RFID and contactless applications, and is ideal for inclusion on space-constrained chips. It is based on the first fundamental new approach to encryption in twenty years. NTRU technology delivers strong security while eliminating traditional speed, size, cost and security tradeoffs. NTRU security operates at speeds up to 2,000 times faster than alternatives while using as little as 1/50th the footprint, and enables new security paradigms currently impractical with older technology. NTRU GenuID security will enable Inside to implement strong security in RFID and contactless systems with any number of users and applications on a single RFID and contactless user device. GenuID offers authentication capabilities, which ensure that the card, reader and/or system component is who or what they claim to be and that the transmitted data have not been altered. NTRU GenuID also provides audit capabilities that create digitally signed records of each and every transaction.

About NTRU
NTRU is the only provider of strong security that fits everywhere. Based on the most fundamental innovation in cryptography in more than 20 years, NTRU eliminates historic price, performance and usability tradeoffs in security. NTRU delivers strong, fast security that operates with minimal power consumption and fits into a tiny footprint making it easy for customers to build devices that people trust. NTRU security is gaining widespread adoption in the radio frequency identification (RFID), contactless mobile communications, multimedia and embedded markets. Headquartered in Burlington, Mass., NTRU is backed by Texas Instruments, Sony Corporation, Macrovision, Lehman Brothers Venture Capital, Investor AB, Granite Ventures, Greylock and 3i. For more information, visit www.ntru.com.

About Inside Contactless
Inside Contactless is a pioneering semiconductor company 100% focused on the development of contactless products and markets. The company is a leading supplier of contactless chips and readers, offering a range of solutions for emerging markets like transport, access control, payment, identity, and electronic identification. Inside Contactless acts as a one-stop shop for its customers by providing a complete contactless technology platform. Headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, and offices in Shanghai, China and Willmington (Delaware, US) Inside Contactless works with a worldwide customer base including system integrators, VARs and application developers. For more information, visit the company's web site at http://www.insidefr.com.

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