Security is a big concern for most companies. There are many ways your company’s private data can be infiltrated, and it is important to always be diligent in protecting your company’s data. Xerox PARC has been researching and developing some amazing new technologies that work with your smartphone to ensure you can securely track and even destroy some of your sensitive data after it leaves your physical location.
To help businesses and government better secure products as they are distributed, Xerox introduced two printed electronic labels (also known as “printed memory”) that can collect and store information about the authenticity and condition of products.
Xerox Printed Memory is a highly secure, printed label containing up to 36 bits of rewritable memory which can store up to 68 billion points of data. The labels, for example, can be used to determine if a product is genuine and to track how it’s been handled during distribution.
The second product, Xerox Printed Memory with Cryptographic Security includes a unique, encrypted printed code (such as a QR bar code) to the memory. It can only be read by authorized personnel using a reader which interfaces with a secure smartphone application. This combination of printed memory with an encrypted printed code, creates one of the most secure anti-counterfeit solutions on the market. It is ideal for use in applications as wide ranging as tracking and ensuring the safety of pharmaceutical products to securing tax or duty stamps for government agencies. The cryptographic security feature was developed at PARC, A Xerox company, and is an added feature in the printed memory labels.
Traditional anti-counterfeiting methods such as invisible ink, holograms and RFID tags can be copied, and are often expensive to implement. In contrast Xerox Printed Memory with Cryptographic Security offers brand owners a solution that is inexpensive and difficult to counterfeit because every label is uniquely encrypted.
Xerox also just announced a chip that will self-destruct upon command, providing a potentially revolutionary tool for high-security applications.
The chip, developed as part of DARPA’s vanishing programmable resources project, could be used to store sensitive data and encryption keys which would self destruct into thousands of pieces after being triggered by light, a mechanical switch, or a radio signal.
“The applications we are interested in are data security and things like that,” said Gregory Whiting, a senior scientist at PARC in Palo Alto, California. “We really wanted to come up with a system that was very rapid and compatible with commercial electronics.”
These technologies “make it possible to ensure the integrity of a product from the time it leaves the factory to the time it gets into the hands of a customer” said Steve Simpson, Xerox vice president responsible for Xerox Printed Memory.
These technologies provide a highly secure method of authenticating and verifying information about a product as it moves through various distribution channels or as it is used, and if your product or information falls into the wrong hands they can provide a way for you to ensure your data remains secure.
