"There are about 50 players in the world for this kind of a product, and at least 70 per cent of them are from North America," Wu said in an interview in the Malaysian capital on Wednesday.

"But the law in the US prohibits technology of this nature from being freely exported to the world. The good news is in Malaysia we have no such cyberlaw restrictions," Wu said.

Wu, chief executive of Lester Technology Group Sdn Bhd, is talking about encryption, the technology that jumbles E-mail and other computer-based communication into unidentifiable language which can be decrypted only by authorised users.

Lester's technology can be used on both Microsoft's and Netscape's Internet-access software.

Wu said text is encrypted and unravelled on the company's technology with the use of two keys -- a privatekey and a public key.

The keys are basically a series of numbers which identify a user.

"The public key is like an E-mail address and is open to all people on the system who want to send you an E-mail. It encrypts and locks a message," said Wu.

"The private key is held by the recipient of this mail and is installed either directly into his computer or can be carried as a smart card with a microchip, whichever the way the system is designed. You need this key to decrypt the message," Wu said.

He said although the process sounded complicated, in reality it could be nothing more than clicking on an additional icon to encrypt an E-mail before sending it, and keying an extra password to unravel it.

Wu said 40-bit encryption technology can be broken by computer hackers in 0.0002 of a second, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Laboratory.

Only data security systems of 128-bit and above have withstood intrusion, he said.

He said Lester's public key had a 2,048-bit capacity, four times higherthan the 512-bit maximum allowed for Internet security systems exported out of North America now.

"This is what I mean when I say I have a product that's four times more secure and worth dollar-for-dollar against any competition," Wu emphasised.

Wu's marketing associate Nisa Ismail said Lester originally obtained its data security system from a North Asian country before developing it in Malaysia.

Wu said the technology could be used for various applications such as opening a banking account, doing credit card transactions, buying and selling shares through a broker and even exchanging high-level national security data.

"One of the best things it could do is form a secure worldof E-commerce," Wu said. "Everyone's talking about electronic commerce in Malaysia but few will feel safe doing it unless they know their transactions are fool-proof."

Wu said he has begun talking to Malaysia's telecom authority, central bank, postal service and infrastructure bodies to subscribe to the product and market itto the general public. A Pan-Asian network has been planned for the future.