Data Encryption and Portability
                        Provide Business Insurance
          
          
               Recent floods and earthquakes have demonstrated
          the failure of traditional disaster recovery programs
          for businesses.  Those few who had a disaster recovery
          plan frequently found that 48 hours after the disaster
          they had a fully operational back-up computer center at
          a remote location, but no business.  Without a full
          business resumption plan, a disaster recovery plan
          means nothing.  Forty-three percent of companies that
          experience major disasters go out of business within
          one year. 
               What goes wrong is that most companies are unable
          to fulfill their business missions with only a data
          center up and running.  After the disaster they had
          their big computers working well at their pre-arranged
          locations, their raw data was intact, but they lacked
          the capability to conduct business.  Those same palmtop
          computers that the traveling salesmen use could have
          saved many of these businesses.  The entire business
          operation becomes portable, operated by the employees
          from whereever they are, regardless of conditions.
               The Federal Express commercials on the theme of
          the customer's ability to immediately obtain the status
          of a delivery order are a demonstration of the power of
          such a system.  FedEx drivers are working with handheld
          computers communicating through wireless channels, so
          that each delivery is recorded on the company's
          computer at the moment of delivery.
               From order entry to customer support, purchasing
          through production, and receiving to shipping,
          information technology provides companies with new and
          better ways to operate.  It is an integral part of
          corporate operations and plays a key role in achieving
          and maintaining the competitive advantage -- and it
          needs data encryption to function securely.
               As legitimate business follows the example of the
          drug dealers, the business becomes flexible, portable,
          and nearly indestructible, because no disaster can
          affect all of the components of the business.
               And as this flexibility evolves, the ability to
          tax the business becomes much less.  The corporate
          headquarters might be in the Cayman Islands, with the
          sales representatives in twenty different countries,
          the product manufactured in a duty-free zone in
          Singapore, and shipped around the world.  There's
          nothing left to tax, because there is no longer a
          physical place of business.
               On April 19, 1994, AT&T and Xerox announced an
          alliance which could make book publishing a portable
          business.  The companies will combine Xerox's document
          management capabilities, such as the ability to access
          optical storage devices, and AT&T's computing and
          telecommunications expertise to allow customers to
          create and distribute high-volume, lengthy documents
          on-demand worldwide.  
               Xerox plans to distribute its new DocuTech
          Publishing Series software using AT&T's wide-area
          network and advanced communications devices to allow
          document information to be integrated, scanned,
          digitized, printed, and delivered anywhere in the
          world.  In practical terms, one could have a publishing
          company in the Bahamas, accept customer orders on a
          U.S. 800 number (so the customer would not even have to
          know where the publishing company was located), and the
          book or special report would be printed and shipped
          from the nearest Xerox document center to the customer. 
          True world business -- and taxable where?  Having your
          computer send a document to a Xerox printing center
          doesn't give you a taxable location.
               Sports betting firms are already operating from
          the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, using U.S. 800
          numbers and charging the bets to the customer's credit
          card.