Ian G wrote:

> Something I've been meaning to ask - is there any particular
> reason to continue to discuss SSLv3 when instead we could
> just talk about and promote TLSv1 ?  That is, is there anything
> in the two specs and the deployed implementations that might
> make one or the other incompatible?

TLS was supposed to replace SSLv3 because of functionality reasons more
then security ones, in that you could have a port (say 80) that could
then escalate to encryption if asked.

One of the most widely deployed uses of this is SMTP-TLS, both encrypted
and non-encrypted uses the same port (port 25) but when the client first
connects to the server it sends a signal to start the encryption
handshaking process. This is especially important for web related uses
as you could also send the hostname you wanted to connect to before
doing the handshaking, which means if a server has 50 certificates to
choose from, and you send a specific hostname it can try and match that
and send you the right certificate, rather then sending a certificate
which is currently the case. Due to being able to reuse ports it was
also supposed to serve the (perceived) purpose of reducing the number of
IPs needed by web hosting companies for encrypted websites.

-- 

Best regards,
 Duane

http://www.cacert.org - Free Security Certificates
http://www.nodedb.com - Think globally, network locally
http://www.sydneywireless.com - Telecommunications Freedom
http://happysnapper.com.au - Sell your photos over the net!
http://e164.org - Using Enum.164 to interconnect asterisk servers

"In the long run the pessimist may be proved right,
    but the optimist has a better time on the trip."
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