Supplemental Incite - June 5, 2006

Too many announcements and not enough space, so here is a supplemental Incite to cover some of the other announcements of the day. Yes, I feel bad for lame blogging last week, hopefully this will help restore some of my blogging karma. 

More tomorrow, as always.

More Top Security News

PGP announces NetShare - is encryption finally transparent?
So what? - PGP's NetShare announcement is interesting and kind of timely given all the issues around laptop theft and the like. Basically, PGP adds a kernel mode driver to intercept file system calls and encrypt/decrypt the data stored on typical file servers. So the files are stored on the servers securely. They are also backed up securely and when copied to a local drive are also secure. Of course, this is dependent on tight key management because if the key database gets blown away, so are the files. But PGP has been doing this for years, so that's not so much a concern. Basically, encryption has been struggling because of complexity and it's products like these that are helping to eliminate the issue.
http://www.pgp.com/news/pgpnetshare.html

Postini adds Web filtering
So what? - I distinctly remember being told by Postini at RSA that web filtering services won't scale. We agreed that if folks like ScanSafe could get a web filtering service to scale, that would turn the web filtering business on its ear. Based on this announcement, evidently ScanSafe can scale and Postini should be eating some crow. But besides the tasty poultry lunch, this is further confirmation that folks like WebSense, Blue Coat and SurfControl better figure out some type of managed services story - before ScanSafe eats their lunch. Of course, ScanSafe will need broader distribution than just MessageLabs and Postini, but between the two of them that makes about 40,000 customers to go after. Many of which I'm sure are already using Web filtering software.
http://www.postini.com/news_events/pr/pr060506.php

Crap release of the day: Juniper Secures Microsoft IPTV
So what? - It seems that every day someone comes up with at least one release that just stinks real bad. Today it's Juniper's empty support of Microsoft's IPTV strategy saying they secure the traffic. DUH! It's friggin IP traffic. Basically it gives Juniper an excuse to tout the breadth of their security product line, and maybe turn attention away from the brain drain that happened in the Netscreen group and the fact that nothing innovative has come from these folks in probably a year on the security front.
http://www.juniper.net/company/presscenter/pr/2006/pr-060605.html

Ping chases the authentication space
So what? - Authentication is hot and Ping Identity is the latest company to announce a product in the space. Ping is taking a bit of different tack in that the PingLogin offering is basically a middleware layer designed to abstract authentication from web-based applications making it easier to implement flexible authentication mechanisms. Of course, having founded a company to build authentication middleware (SHYM, back in 1998) I know a bit of the complexities of working with applications and more importantly, getting customers to understand that they need this instead of what they are going to get from their WAM (web access management) implementation. Ping's positioning of "good enough," but easier to implement authentication may open up some of the mid-market that cannot deal with WAM.
http://www.pingidentity.com/news/show/140

Counterpane does the SLA mambo
So what? - If Juniper's release wasn't so lame, this one would take the crap release of the day award. So now Counterpane is guaranteeing provisioning in 5 days and 100% SOC availability. I haven't seen the contractual language, but it will be interesting as to what "penalties" are levied and how these "protect companies from financial loss" as the title of the release says. This is more marketing hocus-pocus because unless Counterpane has figured out a way to pay punitive damages (really reflecting a customer's loss) than this is just another SLA that has no teeth. Feels to me like a bit of desperation, since why go down this path if you can compete on the fact that your service is better.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060605/20060605005551.html?.v=1