Re: Edited Edupage, 24 March 1996

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>]

Jeff Weinstein writes:
> >         Any possibility that Netscape might build in some form of
> >         cryptography?
> > I realize ITAR rules would make this problematic, but perhaps some sort of
> > out-of-country deal for putting in the hooks for PGPhone could be done.
> 
>   The internet phone software is coming from one of the companies that
> we are acquiring.  This is one obvious application of SSL that I will be
> looking into after the merger is complete.

1) I strongly suggest that SSL is *not* in its current form the right
   technology, because internet phone type tools probably use UDP, not
   TCP.
2) I strongly hope that Netscape tries to move the product towards
   standards based mechanisms like the IETF's RTP protocol, which are
   in widespread use, rather than pushing yet more proprietary
   systems. Proprietary is bad in this instance. I believe, by the
   way, that several existing RTP implementations have encryption in
   them.

Perry