Re: Real-time BBS Encryption??

[David Reeve Sward <sward+@cmu.edu>]

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 7-Apr-93 Real-time BBS Encryption??
by Eric Hughes@soda.berkele 
> For PC's, replacing the terminal software is really the best way.
> There is no effective abstraction of serial port hardware in the PC
> world.  The int 0x14 driver in the BIOS was rampantly defective, and
> MSDOS does not provide a standard interface.
>  
> As a result, almost all comm software on PC's talks to the serial port
> directly.  Now in MS Windows, there is abstraction for ther serial
> ports, but I don't know how easy it is to insert a device layer.

Actually, there is a rather old (for the PC) abstraction called FOSSIL
(Fido Opus Seadog Serial Interface Layer ... or so).  It is essentially
an extention/replacement for the BIOS int 0x14 driver.  It is certainly
possible to further extend this for encryption by adding some functions
to the interface.  The two FOSSILs I know of are X00 and BNU - They can
be found in oak.oakland.edu:/pub/msdos/fossil
-- 
David Sward    sward+@cmu.edu