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Moskowitz' mail

Robert Moskowitz writes:

>Marcus,
>
>What is TIS's (or your) position on IPSP.  Will this get implemented or does
>the 'real' world already have an interop alternative.

	I need to specify that nowaday's Marcus' position and TIS'
position may no longer be the same thing. :) We've parted company
quite amiably but I can no longer speak for TIS in any way, shape,
or form.

	I believe (my personal opinion), however, that IPSP will be
what everyone will likely hew to when the standards bodies finally
get something relevant out the door. At an open discussion today
with a number of firewall vendors, the question of standardizing
encryption was raised and I was interested (and grimly amused/pained)
that nobody seemed to feel that IETF's work was going to produce
near-term relevant results. I caught myself sticking up for IETF
(since the alternatives are worse) by encouraging people to at least
look hard at swIPe before rolling their own, and that way there'd be
some kind of evolutionary path. I think a lot of firewalls out there
are based on something swIPe-like and if IPSP ever happens and IPV6
ever happens then they'll probably cut over if unencumbered and
commercially useable/high-quality versions of IPSP are available.

>Also, what do you know of Cylink's plans to create their own IP security
>standard?

	All I know is that they have one. :)

	Since the standards process has proven ineffective, and vendor
lobbyists on standards working groups have shown that they can easily
drag IETF's efforts into increasing irrelevance, I suspect a number
of vendors are seeing an opportunity to try to grab market share with
de facto standards. How well it will work remains to be seen, but it
is certainly hard to lose against something that's not available, when
you have a customer demand that you can meet today.

mjr. [Obviously, since I've just loudly said some harsh truths,
these are my opinions only. If you don't like them, you can complain
to the president of Information Works! directly at mjr@iwi.com]