The Brexit deal marks an unexpected comeback for Netscape 4.0

The trade agreement between the EU and Great Britain, essential by Brexit, came to an end at the last minute. This is the only way to explain why ID recommendations are included in the glorious 1246 page document, which would certainly have been noticed and edited in the critical review.

Mozilla Mail and Netscape 4.x

Page 921 of the Agreement deals with the security of communication by email. “The s / MIME functionality is integrated into most modern email programs, including Outlook, Mozilla Mail and Netscape Communicator 4.x, and works on all major email software packages,” it says back then: Because of the integration, it has been chosen as a means of demonstrating the future so that security in communications can be implemented. “

In the same place Of the treaty between the European Union and Great Britain The authors recommend 1024-bit RSA encryption and the SHA-1 hashing algorithm for secure communication via email.

The section of the trade agreement in question is exactly one paragraph EU law since 2008 Rising voices on the internet suspect an unfortunate copy and inadvertently paste that as the reason for the ridiculous suggestions. It seemed as if no agreement could be reached for a long time – the provisional text of the agreement had to be finalized under great pressure after the historic agreement on a Brexit trade agreement.

Sorry

However, Professor Phil Buchanan, who teaches cryptography at Napier University in Edinburgh, does not have much understanding of copying completely outdated information technology guidelines. He told the Broadcasting Corporation of Britain (BBC) that there was no excuse for this. The SHA-1 and 1024-bit RSA were a good choice about ten years ago, but they no longer meet modern security standards. Netscape Communicator since 1997.

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