devine@vianet.UUCP (Bob Devine) (03/05/87)
From "Electronics" March 5, 87 comes the following bit about
how your tax dollars are hard at work:
The National Security Agency may muddy up the already
clouded market for security products when it publishes
a new list of "endorsed and preferred" computer and
communications security devices and vendors. The new
"Information Systems Security Products and Services" will
supplement, but not supercede, the Defense Department's
"DOD Standard - Trusted Computer Systems Evaluation
Criteria", also known as the Orange Book, which describes
the Pentagon's criteria for classifying hardware and software
and includs an apparently outdated evaluated products list.
The new book may be out by the end of the month.
The NSA's National Computer Security Center also has been
working on an appendix to the Orange Book that would, for the
first time, cover security-product standards for local- and
wide-area networks. Meanwhile, NATO plans to write its own
standards for secure computer and communication devices,
apparently in conflict with the Orange Book.
This last paragraph should prove to be interesting in light of
the NBS's push with GOSIP for OSI networks and DOD's long-time
backing of the TCP/IP suite.
Bob Devine