OpenSSL Gets Cryptography Gift From Sun

Kataire writes "C|Net posted this story about how Sun Microsystems' has donated 'elliptic curve' encryption technology, (developed by Whitfield Diffie of Diffie-Hellman public key fame) to the OpenSSL project. This potentially means better encryption for lighter-weight systems such as PDAs."

Comments

It's not really that surprising

[bsharitt]

Sun is basically "arming the rebels" so they can better fight Microsoft. Even though they may have other motives, it's nice of them anyway.

Offering from large companies

[phorm]

Has anybody noticed a trend lately of large corporations or companies making offers to the public source movements. Is this a play between them for notice, or are they finally starting to figure out that it's better to play nice with open source than fight against it?

Re:Good for more then PDA's

[jbrandon]

That's just not true; Shor's algorithm transfers quite nicely to solving what is essentially the discrete log problem in a group. IOW: Elliptic curve cryto is not any safer. See This

Bush's advisor present, official government suppor

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what that tells us, right?

The NSA can already crack it. :)

Wrong. OpenSSL != OpenSSH

[plcurechax]

OpenSSL is written by the OpenBSD people

Not quite.

OpenSSL is maintained by OpenSSL core members: Ralf S. Engelschall, Ben Laurie, Mark J. Cox, Dr. Stephen Henson, and others developers.

OpenSSH was written by OpenBSD members (Theo de Raadt, Niels Provos, Markus Friedl, Dug Song, and others). OpenSSH uses OpenSSL as a cryptographic library source (it is highly optimized for many processors).

Re:Great!

[Darkforge]

Actually, there is a real use for widespread heavy-duty crypto, even on a PDA: encrypted money tokens.

If strong encrypted money tokens were to be implemented on a wide scale for, say, Palm PocketPC, Zaurus, and maybe a special purpose StrongARM device, you could expect to see a cheap widespread secure electronic payment mechanism that you can use for micropayments.

Aside from the novelty of buying lunch with your PDA, this could be the next step towards truly secure electronic transfers. You can say goodbye to corporate privacy violations when you can pay for your online goods with secure anonymous electronic cash.

Imagine paying your peers in a P2P system for MP3s/OGGs/whatever. Providing fat bandwidth for P2P would be a potential money-maker, not merely a labor of love. Throw in an anonymizing protocol and you're selling MP3 bandwidth online securely and untraceably; the RIAA couldn't shut you down, because there'd be no way to figure out who you were.

That's the power of widespread strong crypto, especially in small devices.

Whitfield Diffie did NOT invent ECC

[plcurechax]

'elliptic curve' encryption technology, (developed by Whitfield Diffie of Diffie-Hellman public key fame)

Elliptic curve cryptography was indepentantly
invented by Neal Koblitz, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington and Victor Miller who was then at IBM.
(Source)

Whitfield Diffie is Sun's chief security officer, and co-invented public-key cryptography.

Merkle invented public-key cryptography (too)

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Whitfield Diffie is Sun's chief security officer, and co-invented public-key cryptography.

Actually, Ralph Merkle invented public-key cryptography (too). Merkle's article was SUBMITTED first, though the Diffie-Hellman article was PUBLISHED first while Merkle's was still going through the review process.

Not to disparage any of 'em. Merkle and Diffie & Hellman both invented it separately.

And for you people who follow Nanotech and/or Cryonics, yes it's THAT Ralph Merkle (who didn't invent either cryonics or nanotech, though he does much great work to advance them).