RECENT BLOG NEWS

Hi!  Two months ago we announced the availability of a version of memcached that we’ve been calling secure memcached.  This current branch of memcached includes ssl encryption between client and server.  Currently, client support is limited to libmemcached, but we’ll work with our beta sites to support additional clients as needed.  Our plan is to submit our branch as a patch to the project once we receive more feedback from betas.

Our upcoming Beta 2 version of secure memcached will add encryption for data held inside the server.  As such, if someone gets their hands on your memcached server, they won’t be able to read the data.  The level of security in Beta 2 will resolve the vulnerability faced by memcached users recently discussed on Slashdot:  http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/08/07/035255/Cache-On-Delivery-mdash-Memcached-Opens-an-Accidental-Security-Hole.

Beta 2 is slated for release in a couple of weeks.  Please contact us at info@yassl.com if you would like to participate in the beta program.

For performance results for secure memcache, please contact us.

A copy of our presentation on secure memcached  given at OSCON is available here:  PPT Download

Many of our users are unaware that the wolfSSL embedded SSL/TLS library is available for iPhone. The first question to answer is why did we port wolfSSL to the iphone in the first place?  The answer to that question is simple:  our primary development environment is Mac OSX and we walk around town with iOS in our pockets.  As such, it was right in front of us and ready to play with.
 
What can you do with an iPhone embedded ssl library?  Build your application with SSL included for enhanced security!  If you need to secure any iOS app and you want to use the de facto SSL API, then choose wolfSSL.  It is small, and will add minimal size to your application download.  You could use it to secure personal data, financial data, etc.  And, don’t forget that wolfSSL is cross platform, so it will run on other devices that you port your application to. 
 
To get yourself started, wolfSSL maintains an Xcode iOS project in the wolfSSL library, which can be downloaded from our download page here: https://www.wolfssl.com/download/. 

If you have any questions on using wolfSSL in your iOS application, please contact us at facts@wolfssl.com.

There’s a great article on “Building Custom Firmware with OpenWRT” in the August edition of Linux Journal:  www.linuxjournal.com.  It’s not out on their website yet, but is available in paper form if you pick up a copy. 
 
If you haven’t checked out the OpenWRT project yet, you can do so here:  www.openwrt.org.  We’ve been supporting OpenWRT for a couple of years now with our wolfSSL embedded ssl implementation, and it had now been adopted by quite a few OpenWRT applications and derivatives.  A couple of examples include:  http://www.gargoyle-router.com/, who hacked wolfSSL down even much smaller than the normal 50k, and LuCi, http://luci.subsignal.org/.
 
If you’re using wolfSSL in an open source project, keep in mind that our policy is to support open source projects for free, as in free beer at our SSL party.  It will rock.  As such, you can channel your questions directly to our forums http://sourceforge.net/projects/yassl/forums/forum/439591, or if they are sensitive, email them to us at info@yassl.com. 
 
Rock on!

wolfSSL is about to make its alpha test debut as a Java based SSL provider on Android.  This project took longer than planned, but we now have a version working internally.  Alpha releases are available on a request basis.  We’ll post more here as we make it available early next week. 
 
In the meantime, for your listening and viewing pleasure:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_IKcMl_a9A.

We’re often asked what differentiates wolfSSL and OpenSSL.  Here’s our list: 
 
a. wolfSSL builds are 20-40 times smaller than OpenSSL.  Hence it is much more useful in embedded ssl implementations.
b. Standards support:  wolfSSL supports TLS 1.1 and 1.2.  OpenSSL does not support TLS 1.1 or 1.2.
c. wolfSSL was built with securing streaming media in mind.  OpenSSL was built before streaming media was popular on the internet. As such, wolfSSL supports the latest streaming ciphers like Rabbit and HC-128 where OpenSSL does not.
d. License:  wolfSSL is GPLv2 or commercial, with a company behind the commercial license.  OpenSSL does not have a clear license. 
e. We have tried to apply Occam’s razor as the guiding philosophy to our implementation of SSL.  As such, our API focuses on the most critical and necessary functionality in order to simplify the problem.  wolfSSL has 20 or so function calls,  and an additional 230 for our OpenSSL compatibility layer.  OpenSSL has over 3,500.
f. Really old code versus relatively new code:  wolfSSL was written starting in 2004.  OpenSSL started in 1995.  Coding standards and requirements are a lot different now.  OpenSSL has a longer legacy to support and maintain.
g. The OpenSSL legacy code comes from supporting usage profiles and operating systems that are no longer mainstream.  The legacy code makes OpenSSL a easier to break and harder to fix. 
h. OpenSSL was written as the SSL/TLS standards were being defined.  Their code went down a number of blind alleys.  We had the luxury of writing our code once the standards were well settled.
 
Please contact us at info@yassl.com if you have comments!  We’ll be happy to re-factor this list with your input!

Hi!  wolfSSL is ported to both the Cuda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA  and OpenCL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL frameworks.  These frameworks are for writing programs that execute on GPU’s, or Graphical Processing Units.  Generally, GPU’s are used for graphics processing, but due to their high production volumes and low cost, they can be useful for math intensive computing.  Early adopters are building super computers based on GPU’s for various purposes.  For example:  http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/12/16/2255259/FASTRA-II-Puts-13-GPUs-In-a-Desktop-Supercomputer.  Search Slashdot for GPU for more examples. 
 
wolfSSL is ported to GPU’s because it is a low cost way to leverage GPU compute power for SSL offload, and can be much more cost effective for building SSL appliances. 
 
Let us know at info@yassl.com if you are interested in running SSL on a GPU.  We’ll be happy to support you!

We have released an Alpha of our SSL Provider for Java.  Currently supporting Mac and Linux operating systems, this provider enables Java developers to use wolfSSL through the javax.net.ssl package.  By using this, Java developers can use familiar syntax and API calls to gain the speed and size advantages that the wolfSSL embedded SSL library provides.

Being in the Alpha stage, this provider currently only offers client functionality.  If you want to give our provider a try, please download it from our additional downloads page here.  Instructions for installation can be found in the README file included with the download.

We look forward to your feedback!

We`re thinking about implementing the security layer under Java to enable HealthVault applications for iphone and Android using our wolfSSL embedded ssl.  This means we`ll support the proper certificate generation for HealthVault applications that want to allow their users to securely access HealthVault information from iphone and Android devices.  As such, we`re interested in finding HealthVault application providers interested in iphone or Android.  Are you interested in device based HealthVault?  If yes, then please contact us at info@yassl.com.

The wolfSSL library for Android is almost ready for alpha testing.  The project has taken us longer than anticipated!  The key benefits to the new technology include:
 
1.       Better performance than Android’s native SSL support through OpenSSL.
2.       Smaller footprint.
3.       Tight, seamless integration with Java as an SSL Provider. 
 
The follow through of the project will also drive release of wolfSSL as a Java based SSL provider on other platforms.  The initial targets are Mac and Linux.  If you are interested in using wolfSSL hosted in Java, then contact us at info@yassl.com.

Hi!  One of our users recently requested that wolfSSL become compatible with Mongoose.  As such, we have recently made changes to the wolfSSL 1.5.4 embedded ssl library to make it build seamlessly with the Mongoose embedded web server.  Essentially this meant that we made minor enhancements to wolfSSL’s openssl compatibility layer to accomplish a clean build.  Everything should build cleanly at this point, but let us know if you face any issues.  If you build with wolfSSL instead of OpenSSL, you will get a smaller resulting build.  You can contact us with any support issues you face at info@yassl.com.