Microsoft Embraces and Extends Kerberos

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

I've been told this is an important interoperability dispute involving
Microsoft, and its efforts to embrace and extend Kerberos, a network
authentication protocol.

One very well known programmer told me that Microsoft apparently changes
Kerberos in a way so "that NT servers can support non NT clients, but NT
clients don't work with non NT servers."  This is thought by some to be
an attempt to undermine Linux.



Here are some relevant pointers:

http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/

"What is Kerberos?

Kerberos is a network authentication protocol. It is designed to provide
strong authentication for client/server applications by using secret-key
cryptography. A free implementation of this protocol is available from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kerberos is available in many
commercial products as well.

   [snip]


This is a pointer to a discussion by Ted T'so on the problem.


http://www.nrl.navy.mil/CCS/people/kenh/kerberos-faq.html#ntbroken
  Microsoft Embraces and Extends Kerberos V5 
  Ted T'so <tytso@MIT.EDU> 


-- 
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org
love@cptech.org
202.387.8030; fax 202.234.5176