Everyone can use, it works with all browsers.

This standard specifies a Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) which can be used to generate a message digest for a message. A message digest is a condensed version of the original message. This algorithm can be used with the Digital Signature Standard (DSS). 

Key words: ADP security, computer security, digital signatures, Federal Information Processing Standard, hash algorithm.

Name of Standard: Secure Hash Standard.

Category of Standard: ADP Operations, Computer Security.

Explanation: This Standard specifies a Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA), which is necessary to ensure the security of the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). When a message of any length < 2^64 bits is input,
the SHA produces a 160-bit output called a message digest. The message digest is then input to the DSA which computes the signature for the message. Signing the message digest rather than the message often improves the efficiency of the process, because
the message digest is usually much smaller than the message. The same message digest should be obtained by the verifier of the signature when the received version of the message is used as input to the SHA. The SHA is called secure because it is designed to be
computationally infeasible to recover a message corresponding to a given message digest, or to find two different messages which produce the same message digest. Any change to a message in transit will, with very high probability, result in a different message digest, and the signature will fail to verify. The SHA is
based on principles similar to those used by Professor Ronald L. Rivest of MIT when designing the MD4 hash algorithm ("The MD4 Message Digest 
Algorithm," Advances in Cryptology - CRYPTO '90 Proceedings,  Springer-Verlag, 1991, pp. 303-311).

Approving Authority: Secretary of Commerce.

Maintenance Agency: Computer Systems Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology.


Applicability: This standard is applicable to all Federal
departments and agencies for the protection of unclassified information that is not subject to section 2315 of Title 10, United States Code, or section 3502(2) of Title 44, United States Code.  This standard is required for use with the Digital Signature
Standard and whenever a secure hash algorithm is required for federal applications. Private and commercial organizations are encouraged to adopt and use this standard. 

Only browsers that support encryption can use. Most browsers such as Internet Explorer and Netscape.

Normally, any text (such as your credit card number) sent from your browser to the web server is sent as plain text. This means that a hacker could potentially intercept (however unlikely) the information sent from your browser and read it. However, by using our secure server, the information is encrypted before it is sent from your browser. It would be practically impossible for anyone to decrypt it.

A WORD ON SECURITY:

Internet CREDIT CARD TRANSACTIONS are SAFE. The data on this is coming in from all over the country.

The Following quote is from the NEW YORK TIMES (11/13/95):

"The truth is that sending a credit card number to an electronic merchant over the internet is probably the safest way to make such a transaction. There is more risk in giving credit card data by phone to a hotel."

The form we use is more secure than if you had used your credit card in a restaurant or given it to the reservations desk at the airport or over the phone to a hotel. Think of how many hands your credit card goes through in a restaurant-- The waiter, the cashier, the manager, the accountant and whoever sweeps up at night. And yet, we trust.

Internet security has been a fairly bogus issue and the fear is mostly generated by those conglomerates and their media outlets who want to create a new form of money used on the web ( of course they'll get a piece of every transaction made on the web. Talk about creating wealth!)

There are no third parties monitoring this site.

The truth of the matter is there are 60 trillion bytes of information blasting through the information pipeline every second. In this way you have true security. Security through Obscurity. Rare is the hacker who can pull the right sequence of digits out of that fiery cauldron of electronic soup. ( If he's that good he probably already has an algorithmic program that creates credit cards.)