Re: TWO WEEK LAST CALL: Regularizing Port Numbers for SSL.

At 9:33 AM 2/5/97, David P. Kemp wrote:
>There are 3 alternatives, only two of which have been discussed so far:
>  * dedicate (and reserve through IANA) a separate port for every
>    protocol that might benefit from TLS protection
>  * use the normal port for each protocol, and negotiate security options
>    (including TLS) from the application using something like SASL
>  * define a one-byte TCP option which would allow the negotiation of
>    a security protocol (e.g. TLS) during the TCP handshake.

Time for this lurker to speak up.

There is a fourth alternative, and one which may be painful in the short
term but beneificial in the long term.  That is to define a mechanism to
define session-layer and presentation-layer protocols for applications that
allows for (almost) seamless integration of things like SSL/TSL,
host-to-host compression, and other enhancements to existing applications.

At least this should be explored.  If I knew more about existing practice
(and if my day job didn't steal so much of the night) I'd come up with some
proposals.  Maybe this is a good research project for a grad student to
look at.

---
Stephen Satchell, Satchell Evaluations
http://www.accutek.com/~satchell for contact info
Opinions expressed are my own PERSONAL opinions.

Received on Thursday, 6 February 1997 09:24:56 UTC