Courtesy Photo James F. Dray Jr.

That was James F. Dray Jr.'s first thought when he started working with computers.

But after winning three gold medals from the U.S. Department of Commerce for his work on computer security and identity cards, Dray's opinion is more conflicted.

"They have helped," he said, "but they have also complicated our lives."

A National Institute of Standards and Technology computer scientist, Dray recently received his third gold medal for developing a standard government identification card with a computer chip containing secret information in its memory and technical protection.

"Nothing is 100 percent foolproof," the Myersville resident said, "but these are essentially unforge-able."

He said his work on Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, which sets out a common identification standard for federal workers and contractors, was approved under the personal identification program enacted in August 2004. The electronic chip in each card will be customized to the person who carries it. Within a few years, the cards will be issued to all government employees and contractors and all military personnel.

"This is a tremendous step forward for secure identification," Dray said. "It will fit all government agencies. There's no guarantee that the agency you're traveling to would be able to read it, but the person inside can be certain they're not letting a terrorist into the building."

He said the cards cost less than people might expect. "You have to weigh the few dollars against the increase in security and reduction in identity fraud. The chip makes them significantly more difficult to forge."

Dray said scrambling information so only the individual it is intended for can read it is becoming the foundation for the Internet, the Web and anything online in a computer system.

"More things in the computer world are hovering around identification security," he said. "Identification in the online world is kind of a fundamental societal issue. That's always been true. Identification in general has continued to be more important as Internet and online use has increased. It doesn't look like it's going to go away."

Identification is a cornerstone of society, he said. "People have always cared about knowing where a message is coming from."

He believes sophisticated identification techniques are the only way to combat the increasing crime of identity theft.

A 20-year NIST employee, Dray, 51, was previously honored for work with an advanced encryption standard in which plain text is scrambled so that only the intended recipient can read it. He was won a gold medal for work to advance the use of Smart Card techniques which embed microchips into small plastic cards.