Marc Andreessen says:
I told you in Email, Mr. Andreessen, that new transport level security protocols are useless now that IPSP has come near to standardization and now that prototype implementations are nearly available.
Great, IPSP looks fantastic and we look forward to supporting it as it moves through and beyond the "near" phase.
Given that you haven't read any IPSP documents, I can only interpret your comments as sarcasm. If they aren't sarcasm, they represent more of the same "why bother to do any research" attitude that got you into trouble in the first place. When I wrote you mail explaining that solutions on top of the transport layer were becoming rapidly obsolete, you dismissed me off hand, not even having bothered to check the literature on the subject. I don't mind an informed discussion in which individuals like yourself say things like "I don't like the encapsulation formats proposed in IPSP because they don't give me enough flexibility to do X" or things of that nature. I wouldn't mind a "we examined IPSP and found it lacking". However, you didn't even bother to look at anything I mentioned. You dismissed it without knowing what it was. Your fellows seem so ignorant on the subject that they think that network layer security requires changes to the routing infrastructure (it does not -- it can even be implemented at user level using BPF or NIT, though I don't recommend that.) The thing I find truly outrageous about the Netscape crowd is that you apparently did some navel staring, came up with an idea internet security, and proceeded to go off and do it. Not for one moment did you consider the possibility that others might have already done something worth looking at, or that it might even be already developed and on its way to standardization. Perry