Crypto = Competitive Advantage?

Note to Mr. Bill -

I was watching CNBC this morning while reading my mail and they had a story
on the Netscape Communications IPO (ticker NSCP btw).  Some analyst said
when asked whether Microsoft couldn't just wipe them out that the most
important part of Netscape's product was that it offered end-to-end
encryption.  He said that this was important for the growth of the nets and
was something that people wanted.

DCF

"Competitive Advantage - Markets vs Politics - in a market your customers go
out of their way to give you their money, in politics the 'customers' go out
of their way to keep from giving you their money."

Date: Wed, 09 Aug 1995 10:17:30 -0400
    From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>

    I was watching CNBC this morning while reading my mail and they had a story
    on the Netscape Communications IPO (ticker NSCP btw).

Apparently the opening price was doubled very shortly before the IPO
(late yesterday afternoon) from $14 to $28.  By lunch-time (in NYC),
shares were trading at $72.

--
Rick Busdiecker                        Please do not send electronic junk mail!
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> 
>     Date: Wed, 09 Aug 1995 10:17:30 -0400
>     From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
> 
>     I was watching CNBC this morning while reading my mail and they had a story
>     on the Netscape Communications IPO (ticker NSCP btw).
> 
> Apparently the opening price was doubled very shortly before the IPO
> (late yesterday afternoon) from $14 to $28.  By lunch-time (in NYC),
> shares were trading at $72.

Amazing aint it - a moron girl at Goldman Sachs of course told me I was 
crazy and anyone who felt Netscape was going to go over the top was a moron.

I guess these corporate types are going to have to get used to the idea 
that the "net" is here to stay and a huge industry to boot.

In message <199508091417.KAA17510@panix.com>, Duncan Frissell writes:
>Note to Mr. Bill -
>
>I was watching CNBC this morning while reading my mail and they had a story
>on the Netscape Communications IPO (ticker NSCP btw).  Some analyst said
>when asked whether Microsoft couldn't just wipe them out that the most
>important part of Netscape's product was that it offered end-to-end
>encryption.  He said that this was important for the growth of the nets and
>was something that people wanted.
[...]

He may or may not be right that end-to-end encryption is important, but:

(a) Netscape has documented exactly how SSL should work, and
(b) Microsoft can licence RC4 and RSA from PKP just as well as
Netscape can.

In addition it is far from clear that SSL will be the winning 
end-to-end encryption in the web world ('tho it looks that way
at the moment - a few well publicised attacks - say one agenst
the 40bit keys, and say a man-in-the-middle may make S-HTTP, or
PGP-HTTP look alot better then SSL to the public - or it may not).