<VV> Need high speed access advice--NO CORVAIR

[Padgett]

>  A firewall
> > does nothing to secure the data transmission; only data encryption will
> > help that.  Most routers and cards use WAP which is really not
> > secure.  Most experts recommend PGP (pretty good priviacy).

I was not going to say anything, I really wasn't but this is a bit too far 
off the wall. WEP (wireless encryption protocol) was not really secure, 
with enough data (a lot) even 128 bit could be broken so long as the shared 
key was never changed.

WAP (wireless application protocol) has been around for several years and 
is really pretty good, WAP II is even better but WAP is in wireless routers 
and cards today (and if it isn't, there is usually a firmware upgrade 
available). WAP support was not in the original Windows XP but again there 
is a downloadable upgrade (think it was in SP-1). All of these are for 
Wireless.

For wired channel encryption, the easiest choice is IPSEC which again is 
built into XP and available for Linux. There are several under-$100 routers 
(Linksys, Netgear) that provide IPSEC capability. When I am on the road and 
need a secure channel to my home I have an older Linksys  BEFVP41.

SSL is the foundation of Internet commerce but takes a special server stood 
up by the merchant and while an expert can do fairly cheaply, it is not 
common in small installations (if you have an expert available, I would 
suggest Linux, Apache, and Open SSL.. All browsers have SSL client 
capability built in.

PGP is an excellent file and volume encryption product but for exchanges it 
has to be with someone who has the same software either the commercial PGP 
or the open source GPG. It is not for channel encryption.

Now this is waaay off of Corvairs but if someone would like some pointers, 
contact me offline. Is how I keep mine in motor mounts and such.

Padgett