Re: Security, the AS/400 and the internet

"Sherry McMahon" <smcm@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>
> This afternoon our IS department had a meeting with a fellow who is
> going to connect and setup several Domino (R5) servers and routers
> at various sites
<<SNIP>>
> We were told during this meeting that there isn't any way to make my
> connection secure.
<<SNIP>>

I guess it depends on what you mean by "secure".

The packets of data that flow from your computer at home to another
computer on the Internet can be observed by people on computers that
are "in between."

The traditional workaround for this is to encrypt the packets so that
its difficult for someone whos reading them to tell what data you are
sending.   Solutions like SSL-telnet, Secure Shell, Virtual Private
Networking (VPN) were created to do this type of encryption.   Its
possible that a very inexpensive Linux box could be set up as an
internet gateway/firewall at your company that could double as a
VPN server (using PoPToP or a similar product) which would be very
inexpensive.

But as to whether thats "secure", I'll leave you to your own opinions!
Every encryption algorithm thats commonly used today has been cracked
before.  Some of the better encryption algorithms make take days or
weeks for a computer to crack them -- but as computers keep getting
faster, this can quickly become hours or minutes.

On the other hand, there are billions of transactions on the internet
every day using these "secure" protocols.   Many of which involve
credit cards.   Would a would-be hacker bother with yours?

I'd suggest that you take a look at what data will be passed over the
connection, and determine how sensitive it is, and how secure you need
to be with it.  Nobody will bother breaking an 128-bit key cypher to
determine how much it cost your company to make a widget.   But, if
they can still thousands of dollars from you, thats a completely
different animal!  If you only need to be "reasonably" secure, then
take a look at VPN or SSL.
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