>Would someone fill me in on the Digital Pathways DES keys thing?
>I'm in the dark. What are they, and why are they so popular?
) It's a handheld cryptographic authentication calculator. They cost
)~$55 in quantity. They contain a replaceable (hot swap) battery that keeps a
)DES key in memory all the time. The admin programs the key into it -- so you
)don't rely on someone else to key your authentication device.
) It's fairly solid, not especially attractive, but it uses an algorithm
)someone published a few years back, that's easy to implement in software, so
)you can avoid host-software licensing, portability, and availability issues.
) It's one of the authentication devices the TIS firewall toolkit
)supports -- we have a server-side implementation that requires no additional
)software, so you can just buy 'em and key 'em and issue 'em to users.
)mjr.
Digital Pathways also offers a client SSNK (Software Secure Net Key)
for DOS and Mac OSs (I believe they're working on a UNIX client). It's
a more convenient implmentation of the cryptographic authentication
calculator (SNK) if you tend to loose or forget the calculator hardware.
Ron Martin
Hughes Aircraft
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