Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: Scenario 3: Writing a comm program that lets Macs talk to each other with no consideration that some Mac users may wish to talk to other platform (or any other Mac-only software) is a major waste of time.
Of course, Apple is pushing #3. They're worse than Microsoft.
Actually, we're not "pushing" this, we shipped it last year. It's available for all Macintosh (that have enough memory) computers in System 7.5.3 at no additional cost. For cypherpunks, it has two limitations: -- It requires a mutually-trusted nameserver. -- It is limited to 40-bit encryption to comply with ITAR. -- A version that does not encrypt the data channel is provided for countries with crypto import restrictions. On the other hand, it preserves authentication and is protected against replay attacks. The API's are published (and we provide sample code), so "any" Mac application can use the protocols to talk to "any" other application. Martin Minow minow@apple.com