Yow! - We did it....

On Sept 5th & 6th, here on the Cupertino R&D Campus, Robert Hettinga from Shipwright and I ran "The First-Ever-Last-Minute-Under-the-Radar-Ask-Forgiveness-but-Not-Permission Macintosh Cryptography and Internet Commerce Software Development Workshop"

This workshop was driven by the copious feedback that I have recieved from developers from both DTS and personal emails, WWDC and MacHack and the Mac-Crypto mailing list.

Since the ability to perform Internet Commerce depends heavly on both networking and cryptographic technologies. I started the Mac-Crypto mailing list last March to discuss the implementation of cryptography on the MacOS.

We had three major goals for this event:

We wanted to provide a vehicle to educate Apple developers and employees who are responsible for Apple's future on the internet about what is going on in the Internet commerce world. We also felt the need to get Internet commerce on Apple's radar. It was clearly on Microsoft's agenda. Developer feedback made it loud and clear that we are losing and have lost developers to other platforms because of it. We are going to fix that.

To assist in bridging any disconnect between what the developers have been asking us for and what we are giving them in the internet commerce world.

To provide a forum where developers can work together to create internet commerce products for the Macintosh platform. In a manner similar to Quinn's Internet Config, we belived that a lot of this infrastructure can be built by the developers themselves.

Sessions:

Thursday Sept 5
	Phil Zimmermann	PGP, Inc	Keynote
	Bill Frantz	Periwinkle	Crypto for the Rest of Us: An Introduction to Cryptography
	Dave Del Torto Marshall Clow Greg Broiles	Level Seven Aladdin	Cypherpunks, MCIP and Mac-Crypto: A thumbnail history of crypto activism and the Mac
	Jon Callas	Apple Computer	Using and creating random numbers
	Michel Ranger	Nortel/Entrust	The Entrust Public Key Infrastructure
	Pablo Calamera	Apple Computer	MacCrypto API feedback: What do you want in an Apple Crypto API?
	Maxine Curry	Apple Computer	Exporting Crypto and the ITAR: Apple's Experience

Friday Sept 6
	Quinn the Eskimo	Apple Computer	Internet Config as a Development Model - Claris Impact slides available -
	Vinnie Moscaritolo	Apple Computer	Towards a Mac Keychain Mgr
	Sari Harrison	Apple Computer	Subwoofer (Internet API) / Feedback
	Vinnie Moscaritolo	Apple Computer	Building Fast Network Software - Claris Impact slides available -
	Jay Van Vark	Pacific Coast Software	How to use electronic commerce technology today
	Marc Briceno	Digicash	Digital Cash and Digital Bearer Certificates
	Robert Hettinga	Shipwright	A look over the edge

Highlights:

The sessions were a real sucess. There was a lot of enthusiasm from the developers. The speakers were great. I received comments that the developers found the workshop was very accessible; there was a lot of interaction between the audience and speakers. We allocated plenty of time for Q&A and discussions. They wished that WWDC was more like this.

Some of the highlights were:

• Phil Zimmerman of PGP fame talked about his plans to build a commercial version of PGP,PGPPhone and CryptDisk on the Mac. And a Mac PGP library that developers can use in their products.

• Jon Callas's session generated much excitement. Developers appreciated that his work will be available in source code.

• Quinn's session described the hurdles he encountered in shipping Internet Config, one of the most successful pieces of mac software. I would consider this talk a must-watch for any evangelist or product mgr, there is a lot Apple can learn from him.

• Sari and Pablo seemed to restored some faith to developers that Apple does listen to their concerns. I got a lot of positive feedback about their willingness to listen to developers.

• I gave a talk about what is involved in designing fast network servers with OpenTransport. I wanted to remove any misconception that MacOS is not a good server platform. I outlined the workarounds to some of the problems that existing products have encounted. Thanks to the feedback I received I plan to give this talk again to Apple engineers.

• Marc from DigiCash was very knowledgeable about uses for digital cash. One that I was surprised by was to drastically lower bookkeeping costs from internal corporate budget management. Here is an place where Apple could lead.

• Robert Hettinga gave a great lecture on the future of commerce and money on the net. It's impossible to talk to him for 10 minutes and not learn something. He is a "natural born evangelist" and would be a great asset to Apple.

• Sidhu voluteered to lead an effort to resurect a developers accessable keychain that can be used as a single log-in point to secure services.

• There were even a few impromptu sessions from the developers. I wished that more Apple folks could have been there to absorb some of the developer feedback.

Kudos

I want very much to thank the individuals that made this workshop possible.

• Robert Hettinga from Shipwright - For his personal time and cost to fly out from Boston, mustering up the developers on the net, assembling the talks, giving the talks, educating us all, doing video booth duty, and everything else. Imagine what we could do with an army of folks like you. (scares me)

• Jose Carreon - For understanding the importance and internet commerce to Apple's future and arranging what was needed to make this event happen.

• Beth Reed / Yolanda Saldana / Robin Wagner / Richard Ford - For all the help organizing coordinating and firefighting behind the scenes (and holding the bail money). We wouldn't have been able to do it without you.

• Cynthia Zwerling - for the fantastic artwork, web design, T-Shirts, and for dealing with all our last minute notices.

• And a personal thanks to all the speakers, for taking the time off their busy schedules to give great presentations.

• And most of all, a big thank you to the developers for believing in Apple.