Howard Melman wrote:
On Mon Jan 22, 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
REDWOOD CITY, CA - Netscape Communications Corp. and Verifone Inc. will devise a system to make electronic payments on the internet more secure.
Anyone know anything about this?
Reported in today's Wall Street Journal
http://update.wsj.com/update/edit/w-netsca.html
Basically Verifone's credit card processing technology (credit card verification) will be bundled with Netscape's Commerce server.
Netscape also announced that the software will use new encryption technology being developed by MasterCard and Visa. I don't know what this quote means:
That technology would break sensitive information like credit-card data into 1,024 bits of information, instead of the 128 bits used currently, theoretically making it much more difficult to steal.
This is typical "the reporter doesn't understand the difference between RSA and symetric cipher key sizes" reporting. What it really boils down to is that export software can use larger key sizes for certain application specific encryption. For example if you limit what is being encrypted to fixed length financial information such as credit card numbers and ammounts you can use keys larger than 40 bits. --Jeff -- Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist Netscape Communication Corporation jsw@netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw Any opinions expressed above are mine. Subject: Re: Netscape + Verifone From: melman@osf.org (Howard Melman) Date: 22 Jan 1996 12:05:53 -0800 Approved: usenet@netscape.com Newsgroups: mcom.list.cypherpunks Organization: Local Mail/News Gateway References: <199601221912.OAA07923@jekyll.piermont.com> Sender: daemon@tera.mcom.com On Mon Jan 22, 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
REDWOOD CITY, CA - Netscape Communications Corp. and Verifone Inc. will devise a system to make electronic payments on the internet more secure.
Anyone know anything about this?
Reported in today's Wall Street Journal http://update.wsj.com/update/edit/w-netsca.html Basically Verifone's credit card processing technology (credit card verification) will be bundled with Netscape's Commerce server. Netscape also announced that the software will use new encryption technology being developed by MasterCard and Visa. I don't know what this quote means: That technology would break sensitive information like credit-card data into 1,024 bits of information, instead of the 128 bits used currently, theoretically making it much more difficult to steal. Howard