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New York Times article




The front page of today's New York Times focuses on (alleged) recently 
discovered security flaws inherent in the structure of the Web that could 
potentially delay the take-off of electronic commerce. According to the 
article, the "weakness occurs in a widely used Internet protocol-or technical 
standard-known as the Network File System. Because NFS does not have any means 
for allowing the recipient of a program or document to verify that it has not 
been altered during transmission from the file server to the user, any 
interception or tampering would go undetected." 

So, now I'm completely confused. Didn't we already know that, on its own, the 
internet is hardly secure for the transmission of sensitive data?? The article 
does not explore these new "flaws" in the context of all the various security 
architectures and firewalls etc. that have been and are being developed and 
implemented. Has anyone else read the piece? Would anyone venture to make any 
sense of it?

Much obliged,
CJ Prince


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