Sean, It would be great if interoperability is no longer an issue! Your point about proprietary cryptography is a good one.
Jan Sean Steele wrote: > Jan, > > As I recall that study (announced by Mass Health Data Consortium on > 4/24/01) became one of the main factors in vendors' standardization on > X.509v3. The major difference being that proprietary "extensions" to > X.509 were accounted for in v3 whereas they had impeded interoperability > in previous versions. > > Interoperability was a major problem with the industry, but I have not > seen or heard any significant mention of it (in the context of > cross-enterprise secure mail exchange) in more than a year. > > Everyone should know to avoid proprietary cryptography (and PGP) like > the plague; Network Associates recently put its main PGP security > products out to pasture. > > -- > Sean Steele > National Account Manager > Tovaris, Inc. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > v +1.703.465.0964 > f +1.703.465.2435 > > "Jan Root" wrote: > > > One more point to add (sorry to keep raining on a good idea): Interoperability >has always been a major challenge to doing secure email. If I buy secure > > email system X and you buy secure email system Y, can we exchange secure email? >Probably not. > > > > The Massachusetts component of HealthKey (the Mass. Health Data Consortia) did an >interoperability project for secure email. I think they started with 6 > > (5?) secure email vendors, all of which claimed to have implemented the X.509 >(v3?) standard. However, when tested, none of these systems could read > > each other's email. This was a couple of years ago so perhaps this problem has >been solved, but interoperability is something to consider if you are > > looking at secure email systems. > > > > And then there is the problem of trying to send secure email to someone who >doesn't have secure email facilities. Vendors have come up with clever > > ways to deal with this, but it is far from being automatic or transparent. Secure >email still seems to be much more difficult than it appears on first blush. > > > > Jan Root ********************************************************************** To be removed from this list, go to: http://snip.wedi.org/unsubscribe.cfm?list=privacy and enter your email address.
