SUN_pak
Andrew Loewenstern
andrew_loewenstern at il.us.swissbank.com
Wed Aug 28 23:24:59 PDT 1996
I was looking at the description of this patent (thanks to JYA for providing
easy access to this article...), and I can't believe Sun got a patent for
this. Tunneling encrypted IP sessions over regular IP by using a gateway
router is hardly a novel idea and is immediately obvious to anyone who is
knowledgable in networking and crypto. Aren't there already products out
there (hardware and software) that implement this sort of thing? I seem to
remember Cisco producing a router and MorningStar producing software that did
this. I also seem to remember the concept being discussed on this very list
several years back (can't check the archives from work though...) I believe
there is even a name for it: VPN (Virtual Private Networks) John Gilmore
is currently putting together a project to do much the same thing in
software...
Did I miss something innovative in this patent, or is this another example
of clueless patent examiners granting patents for things that don't deserve
patent protection?
andrew
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