Dated January 11, 2000
Business Standard

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) here is developing network security technologies that have been denied to India by advanced countries.

The technology, necessary for the growth and development of eCommerce as well as for the security of government networks, would be ready for commercial use by the end of this year, C-DAC's Executive Director Shri. R.K. Arora told a team of visiting journalists.

"These technologies, which are not available from western nations due to restriction and control regimes, will be needed after the passing of the cyber law Bill in Parliament," Shri. Arora said. The Rs. 2 crores project includes developing Internet and data security systems required for eCommerce to secure private networks. A virtual private network system, an Internet-based secure network for private use, is also on the anvil, he said.

"It is a kind of network within a network," Shri. Arora said adding the networks would be doubly-protected with 'firewalls' (software providing multiple layers of security).

Though firewalls are easily available, development of network security systems involve ultra-modern encryption and mathematical modelling technologies, which are not available and was denied to India by western nations, Shri. Arora said.

C-DAC also plans to reduce the time needed for software development by providing a library of reusable software component, Arora said.

The project, supported by the Department of Information Technology has already started and would be completed by the end of 2001, he added.

"We are regularly interacting with the software industry to see whether the components fulfill their needs," he said.

Asked why Indian industry does not use PARAM Supercomputer, he said supercomputing is required mostly in research fields like climate modelling, computational fluid dynamics and genetics, which are supported by the government.

Areas like data mining and data warehousing that required supercomputing facility are relatively new in India and industry is yet to catch up, he said.

However, some pharma companies and the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) have started using it for drug designing and oil exploration, he said.