Safe from Prying Eyes
You may know that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies argue
that criminals and terrorists use encryption to avoid various types of
surveillance. Because of this belief, the agencies have been pushing for
encryption key escrow laws. The laws would require all encryption users to
provide copies of their private keys to law enforcement officials for use in the
event they need to tap your communications. Of course, the FBI says the keys
would be used for taps only under court order, but citizens argue that a key
escrow is simply too much temptation for abuse of power and a complete reversal
of the citizen's right to privacy.
The people against key escrow laws won a major battle in September when the
US House Commerce Committee approved, by a 35-16 vote, the Security and Freedom
through Encryption (SAFE) Act. Observers consider the bill's passage a major
victory for proponents of privacy on the Internet. The committee rejected an
amendment that might have required all users to give copies of their private
encryption keys to the FBI. Instead, the committee amended the SAFE bill to
create a special government body to assist law enforcement officials in dealing
with encryption encountered during the course of an investigation.
—Mark Joseph Edwards
COM+, The Sequel
With the release of Internet Explorer (IE) 4.0 in late September,
Microsoft says IE 4.0 will serve as a cornerstone for the next generation of
Windows and will let developers move away from their three-tiered-application
models, favoring Web interfaces and component-based models instead. Components
are small pieces of prewritten code that you can modify for easy reuse instead
of writing new code from scratch.
To make these components work together, a developer needs a bit of glue: the
Common Object Model (COM). At its Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft
rechristened COM as COM+ and will extend the architecture by incorporating
additional infrastructure to facilitate building cross-platform applications.
COM+ will be part of upcoming releases of Windows, and Microsoft will ship
prerelease versions to developers by the end of 1997.
Everyone knows that Sun Microsystems, Netscape, Novell, and others support
the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) object model instead of
COM. Recently, Netscape's Mark Andreessen predicted Microsoft would drop COM
support by 1999, but Microsoft's actions refute that prediction. Enterprise
software developers SAP, Baan, and PeopleSoft (among others) have all pledged
their support for COM in their products.
—Mark Joseph Edwards
SGI Cries Uncle!
Acknowledging the inevitable, Silicon Graphics (SGI) has confirmed
that it will deliver a new line of computers next year based on the Windows and
Intel (WinTel) technologies. SGI says that resisting the growing dominance of
these two firms and their technology is futile and that to become a leader in
graphics, you must have a Windows NT product line.
SGI will design its new workstations around Intel processors and will run
NT software. The machines will incorporate SGI's software and hardware systems
for generating graphics. Alias/Wavefront, an SGI unit, is already developing
graphics-editing applications for NT.
Analysts think SGI's NT systems could become superior to competing
products, such as those from Sun Microsystems. The industry expects SGI systems
to make their debut, with a big splash, in the second half of 1998.
This announcement leaves Sun as the sole UNIX-only vendor of any size. Even
Sequent, longtime champion of multiprocessor UNIX-based transaction servers, has
announced plans for NT-based products.
—Mark Joseph Edwards and Alex Pournelle
Siggraph '97: NT, More Than Ever
If the Special Interest Group on Graphics (Siggraph) conference used
to be an all-Silicon Graphics (SGI) show, it is no longer. Windows NT users made
a strong showing at the August Siggraph conference. Attendees appeared to be
concentrated more in the corporate MIS camp than in creative endeavors. The
computer graphics market has gone mainstream and is poised to use NT as a
stepping-stone to the office desktop and corporate communications department.
The show announcements went across the board, too. Major vendors, including
HP, Intergraph, Compaq, and Digital Equipment--even Dell and Gateway
2000--introduced true NT workstations, designed to compete directly with SGI's
premier products for creating complex visuals. Companies that had previously
concentrated on NT products for the server market have declared visual computing
a significant market and moved into workstations. NT workstation integration,
technical support, and internal expertise have matured to rival the UNIX market.
Although the NT workstations are impressive, the graphics cards in them are
far more innovative. Both Intergraph (with RealiZm II) and HP (with VISUALIZE
FX4) announced new high-end, NT-based, graphics cards for the OpenGL market,
boards with performance that should give SGI a run for its money. Evans and
Sutherland Computer, a pioneer in UNIX-based graphics products such as flight
simulators, is quietly moving its entire line to NT. Even Intel has decided 3D
graphics are important, announcing the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) right
after the show.
What impact will this graphics performance level have on the NT community?
First, it will be a boon for all current 3D users: engineers, scientists, and
creators of graphics for corporate communications, commercials, Web sites, TV,
and film. Second, PowerPoint-type slideshows will become 3D, if only to spice up
boring presentations; the more 3D, the more graphics power required. (Improved
graphics will also boost the PC games market, which has an insatiable thirst for
3D power.)
This change in the graphics universe reached well into the software arena.
The biggest news in NT graphics software was the unveiling of Kinetix's 3D
Studio MAX 2.0, with 1000 new features, including scripting and much faster
rendering.
Microsoft wasn't showing anything new in its Digital Studio initiative, any
attempt to unify the 3D production process in one product line, nor anything on
Sumatra/SoftImage 4.0. Microsoft demonstrated SoftImage 3.7 and related
products, used extensively in motion pictures and game development.
—Alex Pournelle