Another interesting post. The list is really heavy. I end up killing most of the articles. There are some real gems in there though.
"Joel" == Joel McNamara <joelm@eskimo.com> writes:
Joel> I was at the Microsoft presentation. Crypto-relevant info: Joel> A patch will be published in the next few days to address Joel> the weak .PWL encryption. I got a rather lame excuse about Joel> how the encryption was first implemented in 1991, and how it Joel> was sufficient then. They will supposedly be changing the Joel> seed. Joel> I asked about what MS was doing in regard to future strong Joel> crypto. Got an interesting response in that that "the Joel> government was going to let them implement 768 bit keys." I Joel> later asked an MS person if these were RSA session keys or Joel> what. He said yes, but I really don't think he knew what he Joel> was talking about based on some of his other comments. Joel> Visual Basic Script will be MS's response to JavaScript. Joel> The interesting thing here is a plan to use digital Joel> signatures on controls and scripts as a means of Joel> authentication. The comment was made "you'd trust something Joel> signed by Lotus or some other big name, but you probably Joel> wouldn't be that trustful of a piece of shareware." Hmmm... Joel> MS will be releasing a "safe" runtime version of Visual Joel> Basic that will supposedly prevent nasty virii and trojan Joel> horses from being implemented on Web pages. IMHO, Perry's Joel> previous comments on the security of Java apply. Joel> Servers and some clients will support end-to-end encryption. Joel> No details... Joel> I didn't ask about GAK. Bill said there was a white paper Joel> explaining Microsoft's position on encryption. Maybe I'll Joel> test the search capabilities of the MS Web site later Joel> tonight. Joel> Overall, the presentation was interesting (but obviously Joel> lacking in technical details as the audience was mostly Joel> press). MS is going to throw a lot of resources at this in Joel> order to maintain its industry dominance. Joel> Thought for the day. Bill on the relevance of the briefing Joel> being held on Pearl Harbor day quoted Admiral Yamamoto after Joel> the 1941 attack, "we have awoken a sleeping giant." Draw Joel> your own conclusions on that one... Joel> Joel Joel> -- David Wayne Williams dwwillia@cet.co.jp Software Engineer http://www.cet.co.jp Catena Enterprise Technologies Linux, PGP, the Web: I love this Net!