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GCN Home > 11/10/03 issue

USPS strives to attract users to E-Postmark app

By William Jackson, GCN Staff

The Postal Service hopes to draw users to its Electronic-Postmark tool now that Microsoft Corp. has incorporated it in Office 2003 and XP.

“Our launch in the Office environment is about putting this where we can make people more productive,” said Robert Crouse, USPS manager for new business opportunities.

Microsoft sees the postmark as a way to encourage electronic commerce, added Microsoft technology diplomat Spyros Sakellariadis.

“We want to proselytize,” he said. “We are a distribution channel, but we see the postmark as a valuable service. We’re hoping to move Office up a notch in trustworthiness.”

The Postal Service has been struggling to move its electronic services into the mainstream. (To read more about these efforts, go to www.gcn.com and enter 171 in the Quickfind search box.) “It is really an e-sign enabler,” said Richard Reichgut, vice president of marketing for AuthentiDate Inc. of New York, which developed the technology for USPS.

The postmarking service has been slow to take off since its January introduction, however. “Most customers so far have been small users, kicking the tires,” said Chuck Chamberlain, USPS’ manager of business development.

The Social Security Administration, probably the largest user so far, has incorporated the postmark in a handful of applications as part of its Secure Transport Service, which involves some electronic filing.

Microsoft is testing the postmark in a human resources application, Chamberlain said. The FBI is looking at it, and Indiana plans to begin using it in an application soon.

Chamberlain said he is not disappointed by the slow launch. Time-stamping and hash verification affect both security and policy, which most organizations must take time to consider. But Office 2003 puts e-postmarks within easy reach of individuals for the first time.

International model

The USPS service follows a framework of standards set by the United Nations. A hashing algorithm creates a digital fingerprint of a document on a user’s computer. The hash travels to a USPS server, where it is time- and date-stamped using a National Institute of Standards and Technology time source, then digitally signed. The server returns a postmark with the USPS logo to the user for embedding in the document, and USPS keeps the signed hash for seven years.



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