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| Secure Sites and 128 bit Encryption
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| In the modern world of online shopping, online
banking, online trading and other online services involved in transferring
sensitive information, providers of these services have taken advantage
of SSL-enabled (Secure Socket Layering) capabilities in browser such
as Netscape's Navigator or Microsoft's Internet Explorer to keep their
transactions secure. |
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| Lately, many of these sites have been switching
to 128-bit high encryption to make their transactions, roughly speaking,
309,485,009,821,345,068,724,781,056 times harder to decode than those
using the common standard, 40-bit encryption. In terms of security,
this is a plus for the customer, but if the customer tries to access
their secured login sites with an older browser, they may not be able
to view them at all. |
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| If you’ve been able to access your service’s
login page in the past, but suddenly you’re getting an error
message that reads “Page Unavailable”, they may have upgraded
to strong encryption. Anything less than Internet Explorer 5.5 or
Netscape Communicator 4.7 will need an update for you to gain access. |
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| For the newest version of Netscape Communicator,
go to http://home.netscape.com/download/sd_cc32d475en.html
and follow the instructions on that page. |
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| For Internet Explorer, there are two options.
You can download just the Internet Explorer High Encryption Package
by starting at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/recommended/128bit/default.asp
and following the steps from there, or you can download the entire
updated browser at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/default.asp.
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| Either way, you’ll regain the ability
to access your secured sites and perform online transactions with
the added protection of 128-bit encryption. |
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