Home and Personal Use Examples

The patented PC Pay™ system consists of the secure encryption PC Pay device and interface software. The PC was designed to be an "open architecture" system that makes it relatively easy to add software and this can include unpleasant software downloaded off the Internet such as Back Orifice. Hacker programs such as Back Orifice and mutations of Back Orifice have been designed to capture information (PC keystrokes such as an entered PIN or Password) in a users PC without the user knowing. Today, some of these hacker programs are designed to even send the captured "clear-text" information to a hacker webserver thousands of miles away. Software encryption in a PC can be very robust. However, a security system is only as strong as the weakest link and if the weak link is between the PC keyboard (or mouse) and the processor in the PC then this will become the weak link that hackers will go after to intercept confidential data. Encryption in a hardware security device such as the PC Pay device encrypts the confidential authentication information at the "point-of-entry" where it should be encrypted.

The PC Pay™ system solves the security problem for eCommerce, home banking, and general purpose access control when using a PC. The PC Pay system also provides, via a "smart card", the capability to download electronic cash to the home. The PC Pay™ system includes interface software that is very easy to use to create your own custom client application. Interfacing your customer application with the PC Pay device and with a server can provide many possible systems, including very secure home banking, bill pay systems, and eCommerce systems.

Innovonics is working with a number of banks, directly or indirectly through Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) networks and System Integrators to help bring the infrastructure together on the server-side for home banking /bill pay and eCommerce system offering secure credit card, debit card, and smart card transaction capability. Many bank security officers have said the PC Pay device is the right solution for home banking (especially in consideration of hacker programs like Back Orifice) and with the PC Pay device they will sleep a lot better not having to worry about security breaches they believe are possible without a hardware security solution. If you are a financial institution and would like to find out more about the relationships Innovonics already has established, please click here to send eMail to relationships@innovonics.com.

The PC Pay device reads the magnetic information from credit and debit cards and can even encrypt the magnetic stripe Track II data offering "card-present" knowledge. When a PIN is used, such as in a debit card transaction, the combination of the PIN and account number are encrypted using encryption that is the same as used in ATMs today. Innovonics first started conducting "live" debit card transaction via the Internet in 1999. These are real debit card transactions to load eCash to a smart card right in the user's home!
The encrypted information is sent to the PC and embedded with the communication protocol specified by the server in a manner analogous to an ATM. The processor (a server, or sometime called the "host") will process the transaction such as giving access to ones saving account, transferring of funds, or paying bills, depending on the capabilities of the client/server software system. The user at home uses the PC Pay device as they would a local ATM, and with the smart card interface the possibility to perform micropayment eCommerce with a "pay-as-you-view webpages" is possible.

eCommerce and home banking is anticipated to take off in the United States in the next couple of years based on recent market surveys. One of the requested features that will make eCommerce and home banking a success on a wide scale is the ability to down-load (or "recharge") electronic money to smart cards to eliminate the time-consuming task of going to an ATM to get cash once or twice a week. Innovonics' PC Pay™ system and client/server software will make this desired feature is already a reality as demonstrated on national television in summer 1998.

Smart Cards are already very prevalent in Europe and Asia . Last year millions of smart cards were produced in the world. Smart Cards are expected to be used on a wide-scale for eCommerce by the year 2001 for typically small cash online transactions. Additionally, smart cards are anticipated to become the accepted security solution to store your private encryption key (or digital certificates) to digitally sign documents using possibly RSA encryption (http://www.rsa.com). Innovonics PC Pay device can also offer an extra layer of security for protecting your private key by using the PIN-Pad to "unlock" the smart card where the private key is stored. Basically, if you are going to place your valuable private key in a smart card (sort of like placing you valuables in a safe) you might as well lock the smart card (or lock the safe with a PIN) and our PC Pay device already has a integrated PIN-Pad to provide this feature. There are many other home uses of smart cards including storing Java™ applets (http://www.sun.com) for many possible custom software presentations.

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