"Proprietary" internetworking protocols (was RE: The future will be easy to use )

[Pete Loshin]

Perry E. Metzger writes:
>attila writes:
>>figures. I'll give ipsec and ipsec-dev a look.  However, SUN does have
>>the power to make something happen on the high-power workstations, and the
>>fact they are making a portable package available in source code is
>>farther than anyone else has gone. 
>
>Unfortunately, an internetworking protocol used by only one vendor
>gets nowhere.

much other discussion ommitted...

I hate to quibble, but past experience may demonstrate this
to be inaccurate.  In particular, and most relevantly:

	NFS (Sun)
	SSL (Netscape)

Another internetworking protocol (IPX) gave Novell a good run.

The point is that a working implementation goes a long way for
people who want/need _something_ that works, NOW. Consider the
relative merits/success of S-HTTP and SSL.

ObCrypto: the POTP people are the Boston Internet Expo today and
tomorrow, and they have their "technical guy" who is supposed
to be answering questions. The nontechnical guy said they generate
random numbers using randomness taken from the text of the messages
being encrypted.

-pl
_Electronic Commerce_ (Charles River Media, available now)
pete at loshin.com