[465] in WWW Security List Archive
Re: SLL protocol implementation ?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marc Andreessen)
Tue Feb 28 07:47:36 1995
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 00:44:25 -0800
From: marca@netscape.com (Marc Andreessen)
To: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Reply-To: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
> Can someone comment on SSL versus S-http (implementation schedules not
> religous debates over which is best) ?
Well, SSL-capable Netscape Navigator and Netsite Commerce Server have been
commercially shipping since December, and we believe there are over two
million active Netscape Navigator users today, all of whom can do HTTP+SSL.
As for the availability of the protocol specs, the S-HTTP spec that Terisa
seems to be implementing to came out last November, and the SSL spec came
out last October.
As far as I know, you cannot today buy a product that uses S-HTTP.
> Is the intention to have
> secure browsers support both protocols or is this going to divide the user
> community based on what browsers they have ?
In Netscape's case, in the future Netscape Navigator will support S-HTTP
in addition to SSL, so there won't be a division of user community
for Netscape users (or, for that matter, Netsite server customers). I dunno
about other companies.
> What is the status on
> implementation of WWW servers using s-http vs SSL ?
Well, Netsite Commerce Server with SSL has been commercially shipping
since December. No S-HTTP servers are shipping today, as far as I know.
Netsite Commerce Server will support S-HTTP in the future, for maximum
interoperability.
> Is there any
> intention on making these available free for non-commerical use ?
sslref (a reference implementation of SSL available in ANSI C form)
is free for noncommercial use (although we cannot export it outside
the US, due to US ITAR restrictions). For more information, please see
http://home.netscape.com/info/sslref.html or email ssl@netscape.com
directly.
Cheers,
Marc
--
Marc Andreessen
Netscape Communications Corp.
Mountain View, CA
marca@netscape.com
