Pat Townsend to Help Encrypt Data on Google Mobile Phones

Published: January 20, 2009

by Alex Woodie

Organizations looking for a way to manage the encryption of data on Google Android may soon be using software developed by Patrick Townsend Security Solutions, a company that has long provided security solutions for the IBM i OS platform, and who is now branching out to the broader computer market.

Last week, Townsend Security announced that its forthcoming Alliance Key Manager offering will support encryption key retrieval from Google's Android operating system. This will allow Alliance Key Manager, which Townsend Security will sell as an appliance, to act as the gatekeeper for data stored on Android devices.

Townsend Security and Alliance Key Manager won't do the encrypting and decrypting of data on Android themselves. Rather, the company is working to make it relatively easy for other software vendors and OEM companies to support the Google platform.

"Developers will find it easy to deploy encryption key retrieval on Android using our developer’s tool kit, giving them the ability to encrypt on Android and decrypt on any major platform," says Paul Ohmart, Townsend Security's lead programmer. He added that, owing to the work Google has done supporting Java on Android, porting the encryption key retrieval API from Java to Android was easy.

Townsend Security announced Alliance Key Manager last month. The product--based on an IBM System x server running a hardened version of Linux--supports encryption and decryption of all major platforms, including Windows, Unix, Linux, i OS, and z/OS, out of the box. The product is slated to ship during the first quarter of 2009.

Supporting Google Android makes sense, considering the pending explosion of business data on handheld devices, says Patrick Townsend, CEO of the Olympia, Washington, company.

"All enterprise platforms, including these devices, need strong security, and this new offering will help OEM and ISV partners deploy strong encryption with total key management," Townsend says. "The availability of increased security should inspire more confidence in Android and in turn will encourage the development of more business applications on the platform."

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