Whitfield Diffie: Prospects of Secure Computing

Abstract

Secure computing is about forty years old, becoming distinct from the physical security of the computer only after the introduction of timesharing in the 1960s.  In the intervening decades, secure computing has proven a very difficult problem and made far less progress than originally expected.  Today a number of new technologies from Trusted Platform Modules, to ``computers built out of networks,'' to proof carrying code give promise of major breakthroughs.  On the other hand, the introduction of web services will change our concept of security radically and may virtually eliminate secure computing as we know it today.

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