The other consortium battling for the CHOTS Corporate Headquarters defence office systems project business is headed by British Telecommunications Plc, which has chosen the UK’s Secure Information Systems Ltd – known as SISL – as its partner for secure electronic mail and message switching – not too much of a surprise since Telecom set the company up as a joint venture with Systems Designers Plc before it became SD-Scicon Plc, and has a half share in it. SISL has developed Secure 400, a multi-level secure implementation of the CCITT X400 electronic mail standard, included within the Open Systems Interconnection model as an applications utility. Secure 400 can handle electronic mail messages with different security classifications, a problem previously tackled by using physically separate computer systems for classified information. Working with standard software such as the Uniplex office automation package – a key Ministry of Defence requirement, according to SISL sales director Jim Fisher – Secure 400 is said to be the first secure X400 implementation available, and runs under Unix, Secure Unix or Xenix. It also conforms to the UK Government Open Systems Interconnection Protocol version 3.0. Fisher said that the product offers levels of security that will not be included in X400 until the 1990s. Price for a typical imlementation would be in the region of UKP50,000 to UKP250,000. Based in Fleet, Hampshire, Secure Information Systems also produces Secure 200, an Open Systems Interconnection communications package for distributed applications, and SAFE, a document registry system. It is currently working with three hardware manufacturers on B1 and B3 secure Unix, and has also completed work on a secure Xenix implementation for Altos Computer Systems Inc.
