Date: Tue, 16 May 00 13:15:09 
To: "" <newsatos2ezine.com>
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Subject: [WarpCast] Communicator Security Flaw
Message-ID: <20000516181456834.AAA743atmailer.bmtmicro.netatos2ss.falcon-net.net>
Errors-To: adminatbmtmicro.net
From: "WarpCast News Service" <feedbackatwarpcast.com>
Reply-To: "WarpCast News Service"  <feedbackatwarpcast.com>

             Network Trace for OS/2
- Turn any OS/2 machine into a network probe.
- Take a trace on any segment in the network, in minutes.
- A software-only, hardware-independent implementation.
      http://www.goldencode.com/ntrace.html

*********************************************************************
 
Source: Roberto Salomon (rfsatgoldencode.com)
Moderator: Trevor Smith (feedbackatwarpcast.com)
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CERT has issued an advisory regarding the improper validadion of SSL
sessions by Netscape Versions prior to 4.72. The text is at:

  http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2000-05.html 


I tested it on my machine with the latest drop of Netscape 4.6.1 with
128 bit encryption and it presented the flaw. The same test on a 40
bit encryption version of Communicator did not present the error.

In order to check if your version presents the problem follow the
steps:

1 - Add the following line to your hosts. file: 204.198.134.88
www.verisign.com

2 - Close all Netscape sessions

3 - Open netscape and access https://www.verisign.com. This will show
a screen with a warning. This is the expected behaviour.

4 - Access https://www.thawte.com. Netscape will access the page
normally since the IP address you added to your hosts. file is theirs.

5 - Access https://www.verisign.com once more. If your copy of
Netscape has the bug, it will load Thawte's page as if it were
Verisign's and with no error messages.

Apparently the 40 bit encryption version of Communicator for OS/2
does not have the flaw, although further tests would have to be done
in order to prove this.
 
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