Re: Current State: An EDIINT Short Status/ Request

[Steve Botts <steveb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

--- On Fri, 03 May 1996 07:17:00 -0700  Dave Darnell <dave_d@systrends.com> wrote:


>I still consider S/MIME vaporware until it is available to all users and is
>proven in the field. 
>How can we recommend vaporware?
>
>I have both an educational, academic, and professional background in
>engineering and love the profession dearly - I therefore feel obligated and
>entitled to criticize a charactistic of engineers that is being displayed
>here: it is the love of something new and whizbang regardless of its
>development stage.  
>
>I am also a business professional and this side of me says that you stay
>away from the "whizbang" until somebody proves it works (i.e. stay away from
>those alpha and beta versions). 
>
>I CANNOT RECOMMEND S/MIME AS AN INTERNET EDI TOOL AT THIS TIME.  My money is
>still on PGP for the next 6-12 months.

Dave, I have to disagree.  

S/MIME is no more vaporware than X12 is vaporware.  Both are specifications that describe how to do something.  There are 
toolkits to implement S/MIME available from RSA, Northern Telecom,
& COST.   At Premenos we used the BSAFE toolkit from RSA to 
implement S/MIME in Templar.  I believe Harbinger is using the 
ENTRUST toolkit from Nortel in their implementation of S/MIME.

Just as end-users don't typically use a toolkit to do EDI, communications, or word processing, but rather license a 
commercially supported software product, it is likely that 
EDI security for the Internet will continue to be implemented 
in the same manner. 
-Steve

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Steve Botts                                          +1 510 602 2000 
Premenos Corp                                    fax +1 510 602 2133
1000 Burnett Avenue                              steveb@premenos.com
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