"On the Internet no-one knows you're a dog.'' So goes an old joke about the ability to remain anonymous in cyberspace where one's identity can be easily hidden.

While it's a feature of the Internet that's great for the honest amongst us who simply want to browse, it's not one that's conducive to doing electronic commerce.

Trying to solve the problem of ensuring legitimate and private dealing between parties over the Internet is being attempted through legislation and through a range of service providers.

While in Bermuda last week I sat in on a talk by Bill Maxwell of Baltimore Technologies about the development of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and why it's important to the development of electronic business on the Island.

The talk dealt with a lot of technical details about the role of a certificate authority and PKI. For the executive it's important to first learn the basics, then as Mr. Maxwell advises, forget about the details.

"It's better to understand it and understand a little of the buzz phrases in order to make a decision on what's best for your company,'' he said.

Baltimore, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland is providing the technology behind QuoVadis Ltd., a company set up in Bermuda as an offshore authority issuing digital certificates.

The talk was given at the Centre Group new headquarters on Pitts Bay Road where Quo Vadis Ltd. has offices. Centre, part of the Zurich Financial Services Group, is attempting to get into investing in the Internet game through its eVentureCentre, an e-commerce incubator the company is in the process of launching in conjunction with technology applications consultancy Paragon Ltd.

While Centre remains mum for now on how it's hoping to become an Internet venture capitalist (wait three weeks for an announcement I was told), QuoVadis is an example of the type of Internet services company that's a necessity for business over the Internet to take place. It's part of the building blocks of e-commerce.

QuoVadis is being set up as a certificate authority, an entity that attests to the identity of a person or an organisation, a type of notary public of the Internet. The certificate acts as a digital signature on a document to ensure the individual sending a document or contract is who they claim to be.

Certificate authorities also use public key encryption to ensure nefarious types don't have access to documents, communications and digital signatures.

Certified digital signatures provide authentication, integrity and non-repudiation to deals. The encryption prevents data forgery and tampering.

In the paper world of company letterhead, an executive's signature, a sealed envelope and a secure method of document transportation are the necessary ingredients of negotiation and agreements between parties.

In a digital world where 60 percent of networks are hacked into over 30 times a year and web sites are attacked at least twice a day, replication of the paper scenario becomes a problem.

A certificate authority must therefore provide some degree of safety in authenticating the parties involved, encryption to scramble the data, and unique digital keys so only the parties involved can decrypt the document.

The certificate authority's task is to provide each party with a unique identity, generate the certificates, update certificates, ensure certificates expire (for example if an employee leaves a company) and keep an archive of the expired certificates in case they're needed for legal reasons in the future.

For the individual user all the digital key authentication, encryption, and decryption lies in the background of an application which will do all the work with the click of a mouse button.

Problems arise from the legal and tax issues involved. Hence the reason for QuoVadis, according to founders Tony Nagel and Stephen Davidson. Quo Vadis wants to provide an offshore alternative to companies like Verisign and other certificate authorities which reside onshore, mainly in the US.

Corporations are becoming increasingly more aware of the need to ground a transaction in a particular jurisdiction so that it's covered under a particular legislation. Parties need to know the type of contract they're entering into.

Bermuda's electronic commerce laws are one brick, a major one, in the building of new method of doing business between companies and people. The location of a certificate authority verifying a document will also be important in determining under what laws any disputes will have to be settled, Mr. Maxwell said.

While there has been no legal test case regarding the authenticity and verification of digital contracts in a court of law -- everyone in the business is waiting for one to occur -- Quo Vadis is betting they'll have the right ingredients to be the choice for offshore transactions.

Eventually every citizen in Bermuda could be given their own digital key for signing documents and, wish of wishes, residents will for example be able to electronically register their vehicles with TCD instead of waiting near the soft-drink machine for their number to be called.

The Australian Tax Office has already instituted just such a programme with all that continent's residents for filing the 1999 tax return. About 1.2 million digital keys were distributed to make the exercise possible.

For more on certificate authorities check Baltimore's Internet site at www.baltimore.com and Quo Vadis at www.quovadisoffshore.com.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin y hotmail.com or (01133) 467901474.