The S/WAN (Secure Wide Area Network, pronounced "swan") initiative designates specifications for implementing IPSec, the security architecture for the Internet Protocol, to ensure interoperability among firewall and TCP/IP products. S/WAN's goal is to use IPSec to allow companies to mix-and-match the best firewall and TCP/IP stack products to build Internet-based Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Currently, users and administrators are often locked in to single-vendor solutions network-wide, because vendors have been unable to agree upon the details of IPSec implementation. The S/WAN effort should therefore remove a major obstacle to the widespread deployment of secure VPNs.
PCT stands for Private Communication Technology, a protocol developed by Microsoft and Visa International for secure communication on the Internet. It is a counterpart to Netscape's SSL protocol and a companion to the STT protocol. Like SSL, PCT is intended for Internet standardization.
The protocol is quite similar to SSL in many respects, and in fact the message formats are similar enough so that a server can interact with clients supporting SSL as well as client supporting PCT. According to the specification, PCT "corrects or improves on several weaknesses of SSL." The following are the main differences:
PCT involves fewer messages between the client and the server than SSL, and the messages themselves are shorter.
PCT has more choices in the negotiation of algorithm and data formats than SSL, and the negotiation has additional cryptographic protection so that the client and server can verify that their choices have not been modified.
The main difference between the protocols is the layer at which they operate. SSL operates at the transport layer and mimics the "socket library," while S-HTTP operates at the application layer. Encryption of the transport layer allows SSL to be application-independent, while S-HTTP is limited to the specific software implementing it. The protocols adopt different philosophies towards encryption as well, with SSL encrypting the entire communications channel and S-HTTP encrypting each message independently. S-HTTP allows a user to produce digital signatures on any messages (not just specific messages during an authentication protocol), a feature SSL lacks. Terisa Systems is developing toolkits to support both protocols.
The SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Handshake Protocol was developed by Netscape Communications Corporation to provide security and privacy over the Internet. The protocol supports server and client authentication. The SSL protocol is application independent, allowing protocols like HTTP, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), and Telnet to be layered on top of it transparently. The SSL protocol is able to negotiate encryption keys as well as authenticate the server before data is exchanged by the higher-level application. The SSL protocol maintains the security and integrity of the transmission channel by using encryption, authentication and message authentication codes.
S-HTTP (Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an extension to HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) that provides security services. It was originally developed by Enterprise Integration Technologies, and further development continues at Terisa Systems. HTTP is the protocol that forms the basis of the World Wide Web, allowing the exchange of multimedia documents on the Web. S-HTTP is designed to provide confidentiality, authenticity, integrity, and non-repudiability while supporting multiple key management mechanisms and cryptographic algorithms via option negotiation between the parties involved in each transaction.
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