[1250] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Fortezza dying on the vine?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Sommerfeld)
Fri Jul 25 17:11:55 1997
To: Rick Smith <smith@securecomputing.com>
cc: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>, cryptography@c2.net
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:48:10 -0600 ."
<v03007804affeac997936@[172.17.1.150]>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 17:00:34 -0400
From: Bill Sommerfeld <sommerfeld@orchard.east-arlington.ma.us>
Your note brings up something which has been bouncing around my head
for the better part of a year (when a little bird whispered in my ear
that Fortezza wasn't very popular within the DoD..).
A number of corporate environments are very interested in smartcards
for authentication, but such systems are only just barely getting off
the ground.
One thing I wonder is whether the higher than anticipated
administrative costs of Fortezza will also apply to smartcard-type
systems. I'm presuming the expensive part is not the symmetric crypto
engine part but rather the PKI/digital signature side of Fortezza.
Is it just USG mucking up, or is this going to be a general problem
with all hardware-widget based systems?
- Bill
