Re: TO COMPRESS OR NOT TO CMPRS (please reply)

[Bob Monsour <[e-mail]>]

At 09:47 AM 2/19/97 -0800, EKR wrote:
>> At 09:22 AM 2/19/97 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>> >I see you haven't heard of SSL, eh?
>> 
>> I am very aware of SSL (and it provides support for compressing prior to
>> encrypting).
>Well, sort of:
>
>There is a socket for compression to be plugged into. There are
>no defined compression plugs (other than null) and I don't expect
>there to be any for some time.

That's funny. When I made a presentation at the TLS (SSL) wg meeting at the
San Jose meeting in December, the first question I asked the group (200+ in
attendance) was how many thought support for compression was important for
TLS. I distinctly recall that well over half of the room raised their
hands. While no one is using a compression "plug" today, I wouldn't go as
far as predicting that there won't "be any for some time". TLS is a case
where it is above the IP layer and where the "packets" are generally larger
and compression can indeed provide a bandwidth benefit. It is also the case
where compression can be done across multiple packets, providing
compression benefits similar to those found in the PPP environment. 

Again, in the TLS case, it is the use of encryption in the protocol itself
which will drive the need to compress the data first, providing the
benefits of security without sacrificing performance.

-Bob