Possible snake oil?

I ran across this at the web site of a New Orleans area web authoring
company. I checked with a friend of mine of long standing on this list,
and he assured me that the information was probably false.

(Here it is...)

<begin included excerpt from web page)

[deleted] has one of the fastest and most powerful web networks in the
world,
with servers effortlessly handling in excess of two million hits a day,
and
resources spanning four seperate backbone providers on two continents
from North America to Europe. Entire networks at [deleted] are exclusively
dedicated to web hosting, electronic commerce and other applications;
separate servers are available with a plethora of advanced services
including: 

     SSL & SHTTP Encrypted Web Systems (using the maximum
     1024-bit encryption keys) 
     BSDI Unix 2.1 (our main net OS, proven to be superior to all),
     Windows NT, Windows 95, Macintosh, DOS, Linux and other
     platforms available. 
     RealAudio, VDOLive, CuSeeMe servers 
     RAID5 mirror networks in Europe 
     Access to [deleted] Advanced Systems Products (IASP) servers and
     scripts exclusively available to [deleted] clients, which include
shopping
     cart/automated ordering, web database systems, surveys &
     demographics, web page creation systems, ad & quote systems, and
     much more. 


=============
<end excerpt from corporate web page>

Well? Do _any_ of you know of a 1024-bit encryption standard for the world
wide web currently in use? According to these people, they're using it.

ObLegalQuestion:

Should I have been less coy about the corporation name?


Phil Fraering          The above is the opinion of neither my internet
pgf@acadian.net        service provider nor my employer.
318/261-9649

Phil Fraering writes:
> 
> 
> I ran across this at the web site of a New Orleans area web authoring
> company. I checked with a friend of mine of long standing on this list,
> and he assured me that the information was probably false.
> 
> (Here it is...)

[..]

> 
>      SSL & SHTTP Encrypted Web Systems (using the maximum
>      1024-bit encryption keys) 

[..]

> Well? Do _any_ of you know of a 1024-bit encryption standard for the world
> wide web currently in use? According to these people, they're using it.

In non-"export" SSL using RSA as the key-exchange algorithim 1024-bit
RSA keys can be used.  128-bit RC4 is most commonly used as the
symmetric algorithim in this case.

It's not snake oil.  I'd guess that some marketing-type
person found out enough about SSL to know that it uses
1024-bit RSA keys and thoght that since 1024 bits is bigger
than 128, they'd claim 1024 bit keys.  There's nothing really
wrong with that.


-- 
Eric Murray  ericm@lne.com  ericm@motorcycle.com  http://www.lne.com/ericm
If you don't see the fnords, they won't eat your packets.  If you do see the
fnords, they will eat your packets, so you won't see them.
PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03  92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF

1024 bit  keylengths are commonly used with RSA, and are generally 
considered to be secure. Remember, key lengths can't easily be compared 
between algorithms from radically different familys 

Simon

---
Cause maybe  (maybe)		      | In my mind I'm going to Carolina
you're gonna be the one that saves me | - back in Chapel Hill May 16th.
And after all			      | Email address remains unchanged
You're my firewall -    	      | ........First in Usenet.........

On Wed, 25 Sep 1996, Phil Fraering wrote:

> 
> I ran across this at the web site of a New Orleans area web authoring
> company. I checked with a friend of mine of long standing on this list,
> and he assured me that the information was probably false.
> 
> (Here it is...)
> 
> <begin included excerpt from web page)
> 
> [deleted] has one of the fastest and most powerful web networks in the

[...]

> ObLegalQuestion:
> 
> Should I have been less coy about the corporation name?

It is their publication.  Why should you be afraid of copying it?

So long as you don't make allegations that are malicious.

> 
> 
> Phil Fraering          The above is the opinion of neither my internet
> pgf@acadian.net        service provider nor my employer.
> 318/261-9649               
> 
> 

--
I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist
unicorn@schloss.li

On Wed, 25 Sep 1996, Phil Fraering wrote:

> Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 16:00:40 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Phil Fraering <pgf@acadian.net>
> To: cypherpunks@toad.com
> Subject: Possible snake oil?
> 

[Acual post deleted]

> 
> ObLegalQuestion:
> 
> Should I have been less coy about the corporation name?
> 
> 

It won't make a difference either way: if he company does care, it takes
all of 10 seconds to prove that the message could have been fakemailed
anyway...

As to whether or not they'd have grounds, no, they wouldn't, assuming you
didn't actually edit the quote, and assuming you didn' (and you didn't)
acually acuse them of anything.  You merely quesioned if they were
correct, and if so, how so... which is perfectly inocent.

 --Deviant
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
		-- Friedrich Nietzsche