encrypted tapes (was Re: Papers about "Algorithm hiding" ?)

Peter Gutmann pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz
Mon Jun 13 21:11:58 EDT 2005


Jerrold Leichter <jerrold.leichter at smarts.com> writes:

>They also sold a full solution for encrypted Ethernet - KDC, encrypting
>Ethernet adapters, associated software. None of this stuff went anywhere.
>People just weren't interested.

That wasn't quite the case for the Ethernet encryption.  What happened there
was that they had a complete product ready to ship and quite a bit of interest
when it was killed by marketing.  The problem was that Ethernet at the time
wasn't the forgone conclusion it is now, it was just one of a number of
potential candidates for the foregone-conclusion role.  By shipping an
encrypting Ethernet adapter, marketing felt that DEC were saying that standard
Ethernet wasn't safe.  In contrast token ring didn't have an encryption
adapter, so obviously token ring must be secure by default, whereas Ethernet
clearly wasn't.  As a result, the encryption adapter was never shipped.

"Strategy is not letting the enemy know you're out of bullets by continuing to
 fire".

Peter.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com



More information about the cryptography mailing list