Security blog chain: DigitalIDWorld

10:24:46 PM    

SSL with Radio and RCS

Dave's request for comments on Macrobyte TLS module and Radio and Frontier, provoked me to write something more general on Radio and SSL/TLS.

SSL/TLS would be very useful feature for corporate Radio k-logging and a nice-to-have feature for non-corporate blogging. There are two scnearios, how it could work:

In the first one, TLS module would be place on the RCS. Currently, Radio authentication to RCS is not terribly secure, but is enough for regular blogging. But as soon as you would like to use corporate klogs, with RCS on externally hosted server (eg Exodus) where you want to limit access just for
your workgroup, you need SSL/TLS. SSL module (probably mod_ssl) would have to sit at the RCS apache and you Radio client would have to be tweaked to use MS Security Service Provider or something similar on Mac.

In case you would implement SSL/TLS on the Userland RCS, Dave would soon need to do buy some hardware accelerator to be put on the server, because SSL cryptography operations take a toll on CPU cycles.

The second scenario that is supported by current version of macrobyte's TLS module is a secure remote access via browser to the Radio server running on your home machine. Non-corporate users should appreciate this, but since I run Radio over dial-up, I can't rave about it.

Since the Radio server would be accessed through secure channel by a single user, performance shouldn't be a problem.

10:21:14 PM