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Who's who: Dennis Abraham

Fueled by a lifelong desire to know what makes things tick, Dennis 'Abe' Abraham created a system to help simplify the complicated process of managing PIN encryption keys at ATMs. His A98 system is gaining momentum, with a new enhancement that allows for remote key management.

May 5, 2004

Dennis "Abe" Abraham has enjoyed tinkering with things his whole life.

As a teenager working in the produce department of the local A&P, Abraham developed a sideline business fixing customers' car radios. "Fifty percent of the time, it was just a bad tube, and thus really easy to fix," said the creator of the A98 system, which is used to create and manage the keys used to encrypt ATM PINs.

He also dismantled and re-assembled an old shortwave radio that belonged to a family member, spurring an interest in shortwave that continues to this day. Though he's long since sold his equipment, the 61-year-old Abraham maintains his amateur radio extra class license because "it was so hard to get," he said, involving a mastery of Morse code among other skills.

Dennis Abraham

Not surprisingly, Abraham majored in electrical engineering at New Jersey's Fairleigh Dickenson University.

Big Blue life

After graduation, he went to work forIBM, where he quickly established a reputation of adapting well to different technologies and obtaining patents, ultimately earning 18 of them during his 28-year career. As part of the circuit technology group, he helped develop stepper motors, and then moved on to document processing and reader sorter technology, helping develop the machinery used by financial institutions to sort checks.

In 1979, the New Jersey native relocated to North Carolina. "I grew up in the Northeast, but North Carolina was home," said Abraham, who found it easier to indulge such warm weather pursuits as sailing and snorkeling there.

'Eureka'

Abraham had what he called his professional "eureka moment" in 1983 when IBM decided to use the Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm to encrypt PINs. The standard had been introduced in 1976, he said, but "no one had done anything interesting with it." Abraham led a team that developed IBM's Common Cryptographic Architecture, which was based on DES.

Abraham joined the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) X9A3 Working Group on Retail Security at about the same time. Membership in the influential group, which develops standards for PIN security, was pivotal for Abraham, who had begun formulating a plan for life after IBM.

"All of the visionaries (at IBM) were gone; it was just MBAs there," said Abraham, who had long since abandoned his plan of "wanting to be retired by the time I was 35."

Membership in the ANSI group expanded Abraham's list of industry contacts and helped him realize there might be "a very nice niche" for an expert in cryptography. "Not many people truly understand how to secure PIN-based transactions," he said, "and interest in using PINs at the point of sale was beginning to grow."

In 1992, the same year Abraham chaired the ANSI Working Group, he created Abraham and Associates, a consulting firm that advised financial institutions, EFT networks and ATM and point-of-sale vendors on PIN security issues. One of his first clients: IBM.

While consulting, Abraham discovered that many ATM owners used a single encryption key across their entire networks. Most of them balked at the expense of sending two technicians to each machine to load keys in order to meet ANSI requirements for dual control. The practice continued even after Visa introduced requirements for a unique encryption key for each ATM in 1995.

"ATMs with the same damn key are a time bomb waiting to explode," he said, "but it became obvious there was going to be a lot of pushback because of the expense (of key management)."

New beginning

Abraham developed an idea to simplify PIN key management by sending technicians to ATMs with a set of random numbers that could be used to generate keys rather than the key components themselves. He enlisted Steve Walker, owner of software development firm JS Walker, to help him.

The two men sealed a deal to create a new company called Trusted Security Solutions over a Chinese dinner in 1998. Early marketing efforts yielded a high interest level among FIs, Abraham said. The first major client, Navy Federal Credit Union, "basically read the packet and said 'where do we send a check?'"

For the first three years, Trusted Security operated in the red. It turned a profit its fourth year and business has improved steadily since then. "This year will be phenomenal, I think," Abraham said, with switch software vendors like eFunds, Mosaic Software and S2 Systems adding support for A98 to their products.

The company is now expanding internationally, having added a Latin American A98 distributor in 2003. A new version of A98 is designed for ATM owners with 125 machines or less. Perhaps most important, the company is adding support for remote key distribution

Walker agreed, calling the remote key support "a critical enhancement."

With business booming, Walker may spend more time traveling with Abraham, whom he said has honed his road warrior skills over the years. "He knows how to ask for a good steak and beer in lots of languages," Walker said.

Retiring guy?

Walker said he's heard "rumors" that Abraham may consider retiring. "We want to make sure we drain every ounce of knowledge he has first," he said. Not as difficult as it sounds, he added, since Abraham is a whiz at helping developers and others grasp complicated cryptographic concepts.

Former IBM colleague Don Schoeps, a friend for 40 years, said he's been encouraging Abraham to retire and "come hike with me," a pastime the two men enjoy with their wives. With his love of all things secret, Abraham also enjoys letter boxing, which involves planting a box of "treasure" near hiking trails and publishing clues to help other enthusiasts find it.

Abraham always checks the letterboxing Web site for stashes in areas where he and wife Gail plan to visit. He is particularly proud of one he placed in Tennessee, a state that he, Don Schoeps and their spouses visit each year for a storytelling festival.

Schoeps remembers that their love of the English language was one of the first common interests they shared at IBM. "Most engineers shun writing, but Abe and I would always speak up and say, 'I'll write that specification,' and if there was a debate to be led within the group, we wanted to do it."

The two became known for song parodies they would create to "honor" IBM staffers on occasions like birthdays and retirements. "One of our main goals was to have more parties than IBM wanted us to have," Schoeps said.

Abraham, who plays guitar and banjo, has eclectic musical tastes, ranging from bluegrass to Bach to barbershop, a genre in which he once competed as a member of a quartet.

Though he's too busy to consider retiring, Abraham said he likes the idea. He's been trying to convince Gail that the Virgin Islands would make a logical retirement home -- one where he could certainly indulge his loves of sailing and hiking. "The only thing that's stopping us is the grandkids," he said.

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Trusted Security Solutions - A98

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Trusted Security's A98 System provides a compliant and efficient solution for establishing unique initial keys in each ATM. A98 uses remote key loading when possible and alternatively uses its patented Comvelope© solution to automate key loading of legacy ATMs.

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