In the News

03.18.2004

"Communication Made Easier"

by Dr. Joseph Wall

March 15 -10 is the National Science Foundation’s Excellence in Science, Technology and Mathematics Education Week. For the occasion, three members of the program committee of the Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration have written on the importance of science education.

Legend has it that when Julius Caesar sent messages to his trusted lieutenants, he didn't trust the messengers. So he replaced every A with a D, every B with an E, and so on through the alphabet. Only someone who knew the "shift by 3" rule could decipher his messages.

Thus was born the mathematic discipline of cryptography - changing data so that they are unrecognizable and useless to an unauthorized reader. The most secure encryption techniques today use a mathematical algorithm and a variable value known as a "key." Only those who know the key can decrypt the message.

One application of cryptography that you see every day has to do with postage meters. In the 1970s, Pitney Bowes used cryptography to introduce Postage by Phone, an electronic system that made meter usage more secure and convenient. For the first time, adding postage to a meter went from a trip to a post office with the meter in hand and manual record-keeping to a phone call to a data center. To add postage, the user simply enters an encrypted combination into the meter. If this combination matches the combination provided by the data center, the meter completes the refill transaction and updates the meter.

If you look at many of the envelopes you receive in the mail, you'll see a strange-looking box on the upper right side of the envelope. This is a two-dimensional bar code that contains encrypted postal information, including a sender identification code and the amount of postage paid. By using this bar code, the U.S. Postal Service can be certain who mailed the letter and that it was paid for, while the mailer can keep the identification code a secret.

Although most people don't devote much thought to it, the number of consumers who prefer the mail to e-mail or telephone continues to increase, going from 62 percent in 2001 to 66 percent last year.

Pitney Bowes continues to experiment with cryptography and other technologies that make the mail less costly, more secure and easier to use. Our belief - that science and mathematics play an integral role in engineering the flow of communication - is reflected in our support for improving science education. Pitney Bowes feels a corporate responsibility to help young people relate to science, mathematics, technology and engineering as real-life solutions to real-life problems.

Joseph Wall is senior vice president and chief technology officer at Pitney Bowes, which is headquartered in Stamford