more U.S. should fund R&D for secure Internet protocols, Clarke says

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Steven Champeon <schampeo () hesketh com>
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 10:33:45 -0500
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: <[IP]> U.S. should fund R&D for secure Internet protocols, Clarke
says

on Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 10:22:39AM -0500, Dave Farber wrote:
> ********************************
> Government Computer News
> U.S. should fund R&D for secure Internet protocols, Clarke says
> By William Jackson
>
> Presidential cybersecurity advisor Richard Clarke today renewed his call
> for government funding to support R&D for more secure Internet protocols.

Bah. If it didn't cost hundreds of dollars for an SSL/TLS cert, we'd be
far more widely secured than we are - practically every service we
provide is capable of being secured via SSL or SSH, but we've not had
sufficient need/demand to secure SMTP, POP, ftp, and DNS to make it
worth the cost of a cert. And with Verisign gobbling up Thawte recently,
the options are even more grim and the prices are on the way up.

Government support for R&D for more secure Internet protocols? How about
government support for and prosecution of antitrust in the very
industries that are retarding the progress of applying what meager
security we already have?

Sendmail supported TLS before any Microsoft mail client did, AFAIK. And
the major reason why it's not more widespread in practice is that
margins are already so slim it isn't worth it to dump another few
hundred bucks for a cert to protect a few people's mail.

How about the USG provides a SSL cert authority to all US businesses
free of charge, or heavily subsidized?

Steve

-- 
hesketh.com/inc. v: (919) 834-2552 f: (919) 834-2554 w: http://hesketh.com
The average person needs trepanation like he needs a hole in the head. -ca


------ End of Forwarded Message

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