Secure comm program, Sockets + LINK

[jim at tadpole.com]

>   Supose you opened up a socket on the local machine.  And that you
> ran your usual telnet to connect to it.  The program listening on the
> local socket would be responsible for running one end of a 'LINK' like
> secure protocol.  It would connect to either the remote telnet socket,
> or a special purpose socket at the remote end.  There either you can
> use a pipe to a pty (standard telnet -> login shell -> LINK -> pty),
> or in a special socket through LINK out the telnet socket.  (There is
> an obvious extention with multiple hops through LINK-socket programs
> which should provide the same kind of anonymity that is provided by
> the CP remailers.)

This is the kind of thing which is just perfect for a streams-based
tty/networking environment.  Create a streams module that implements
Link and DH key excng.  Push it on your tty stream at both ends.  Works
over modems, telnet/rlogin, what-have-you.  A similar module could be
created to sit below the IP module in SVRx-based Un*xes.

>  It is also likely to be obsoleted as soon as secure-ip gets out.

And once the vendors for both endpoints update to it.  Could be a while.

>   Infact it would be nice to see some socket (perhaps 32?) become the
> standard for the secure telnet service.

I think it would be much better to develop something that will work with
the current port numbers, else we stand a good chance of asking for a 'new'
secure port foreach well-known service.  (Secure SMTP, Secure ftp-cmd, secure
ftp-data,...)

Jim