Re: Possible snake oil?

[Eric Murray <ericm@lne.com>]

Phil Fraering writes:
> 
> 
> I ran across this at the web site of a New Orleans area web authoring
> company. I checked with a friend of mine of long standing on this list,
> and he assured me that the information was probably false.
> 
> (Here it is...)

[..]

> 
>      SSL & SHTTP Encrypted Web Systems (using the maximum
>      1024-bit encryption keys) 

[..]

> Well? Do _any_ of you know of a 1024-bit encryption standard for the world
> wide web currently in use? According to these people, they're using it.

In non-"export" SSL using RSA as the key-exchange algorithim 1024-bit
RSA keys can be used.  128-bit RC4 is most commonly used as the
symmetric algorithim in this case.

It's not snake oil.  I'd guess that some marketing-type
person found out enough about SSL to know that it uses
1024-bit RSA keys and thoght that since 1024 bits is bigger
than 128, they'd claim 1024 bit keys.  There's nothing really
wrong with that.


-- 
Eric Murray  ericm@lne.com  ericm@motorcycle.com  http://www.lne.com/ericm
If you don't see the fnords, they won't eat your packets.  If you do see the
fnords, they will eat your packets, so you won't see them.
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