From: phelix@vallnet.com
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:42:03 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: [Long] How to recover private keys for various Microsoft products
In-Reply-To: <88531016604880@cs26.cs.auckland.ac.nz>
Message-ID: <34c5a027.243529486@128.2.84.191>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On 20 Jan 1998 23:19:36 -0600, pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)
wrote:

>    How to recover private keys for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Internet
>            Information Server, Outlook Express, and many others
>                                      - or -
>                 Where do your encryption keys want to go today?
> 
>                    Peter Gutmann, <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz>
> 
As if there wasn't enough incentive to steal private keys, here's a little
diddy from news.com (Where do your stocks want to go today?):

MS pushes NT for
                securities 
                By Tim Clark
                January 20, 1998, 5:25 p.m. PT 

                update Pushing into Sun Microsystems' (SUNW)
                territory, Microsoft (MSFT) said today it will expand
                its Windows DNA for Financial Services framework
                (DNA-FS) beyond banking and into the securities
                industry. 

                Microsoft's goal: to sell its Windows NT Server
                software as a platform to automate all the
                paperwork involved in buying and selling securities, a
                market which Sun has dominated. The company also
                hopes to gain from the consolidation trend among
                banks, stock brokerages, and insurance companies. 

                "Sun is the competitor in this market," Microsoft's
                Matt Conners, worldwide securities industry
                manager, said. 

                In a related announcement, Tibco, owned by
                Reuters, will port its financial messaging middleware
                to the Windows NT Server platform.
                Hewlett-Packard will support deployments of Tibco's
                system with the consulting and PC servers. 

                The announcements, part of Microsoft's effort to
                move its technologies into vertical industries that
                Unix has dominated, came in Bill Gates's address by
                satellite today at a financial services conference in
                London. DNA stands for Distributed interNet
                Applications for Financial Services (DNA-FS), a
                software framework that allows software
                components to connect to mainframes, WebTV
                systems, and other computers. 

                Gates also today reiterated Microsoft's plans to ship
                a second beta test version of its Windows NT 5.0
                operating system by mid-year, followed by the final
                version within six to nine months afterwards. 

                "We're doing very well on the desktop--we've
                replaced a lot of Unix workstations," Conners said,
                estimating that in the retail brokerage segment, more
                than a quarter of desktops run NT Server. Those
                figures are boosted by Merrill Lynch and Smith
                Barney using NT in their retail operations. "It's
                probably less on trading floors." 

                Far less, says Rob Hall, vice president in Sun's unit
                that sells to the securities industry. 

                "The trading floor is still predominantly Sun, and we
                see our Darwin entry-level workstation, and
                especially our thin client technology and products
                offering us a chance to grow that market share," said
                Hall. 

                Sun's competing architecture for securities firms is
                called Sun Connect, which was demonstrated last
                June at the Security Industries Association trade
                show. Microsoft hopes to demonstrate its DNA-FS
                architecture at this year's SIA show. 

                Hall said Sun Connect embraces Java-based
                network computers (NCs), not just Windows desktop
                machines. Wall Street has strongly endorsed Java,
                according to recent surveys, and Hall called
                Microsoft's failure to address Java in DNA-FS "a
                glaring omission." 

                Like Microsoft's DNA-FS, Sun Connect also targets
                the convergence in financial services--banks,
                insurers, and brokerages getting into one another's
                businesses, often through mergers or acquisitions. 

                Microsoft's immediate goal is to create NT-based
                solutions to the so-called Straight-Through
                Processing (STP) problem. Stock trades must wend
                through multiple computer systems at different
                companies, a system that is not fully automated.
                Microsoft hopes its partners, such as Tibco, will build
                NT software to streamline transactions by passing
                digital information from one computer system to
                another and by minimizing paperwork. 

                The underlying technology in Microsoft's effort is
                Component Object Management or COM, which
                puts information into digital wrappers that can be
                passed from computer to computer, including
                mainframes and Unix machines. 

                Sun's Hall faulted Microsoft's initiative for relying on
                its COM architecture, used in Windows but not
                endorsed by an industry standards group such as
                Open Group, which backs CORBA for similar
                purposes. 

                Today's announcement expands DNA-FS, which
                was announced last month for banking, to the
                broader securities market. A similar effort in the
                insurance industry, called OLifE, also will be grouped
                under the broader DNA-FS framework. 

                "The goal of DNA FS is not to facilitate
                convergence of industries at all; but it's clear those
                industries will converge," Conners said. "DNA FS
                will be a technical solution for when those industries
                converge to be able to plug in software." 

                Tibco's involvement is key because it has 400
                customers and about half the market for trading floor
                software. The port to NT Server will take less than a
                year, Conners said. 

                Several software vendors backing Windows
                DNA-FS for securities include Advent Software,
                Comprehensive Software Systems, Dow Jones
                Markets, and Financial Technology International. 

                Microsoft and partners hope to reduce the costs of
                processing transactions by building on established
                standards in the financial services industry. 

                Reuters contributed to this report