Outlook et al

["Alan Rudd" <arudd () bytex com>]

The issue of Outlook as a problem stems not from its inherent insecurity,
but through the fact that it is a very useful and rich bag of tricks that
has enabled a lot of functional corporate communications. And it's also
"free" with the number one selling productivity suite, MSOffice. Outlook
isn't just email, but that's its biggest susceptibility to abuse.  I don't
think it's a pig with lipstick either, but as many have said - it's our
there in volume so it's a prime target. Getting everyone to switch to Eudora
or "mail software X" won't resolve the issue.  Perhaps getting the service
providers to provide better protected value added mail server services
might.

Let's not ignore the reality here.  "Telecommunications" has become a two
class service; secure real-time private comms & data on the one hand and
(inherently insecure by nature) best effort (IP) on the other.

With the advent of "Homeland Security" is does not seem reasonable that a
"second class" service would become the basis of our national
infrastructure - and yet that is the hype of the day.   The need for secure
private communications has yet to be enunciated in public fora (outside of
the VPN hype) as a major issue - as for example, the Gigabit Ethernet folks
continue to propose Ethernet as the "new national network".

Alan J. Rudd
Bytex Corporation
001.678.580.1659
arudd () bytex com


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