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UCSD Grads Take the Load Off of Moving Files

Webmasters, graphic artists and scientists looking to move large files over the Internet frequently have to choose between the complicated road or the indiscreet road.

Some choice.

UCSD-area computer experts say the easy and popular file transfer protocol, or FTP, could also tell eavesdroppers your user name and password , the very things needed to steal a person’s identity and create some havoc.

Now Gary Cohen and Brian Knight, two recent UCSD grads, say they have come up with an easy and discreet alternative.

Their product is Secure FTP. It’s a project they began while at UCSD, under the guidance of formerr San Diego Supercomputer Center Director Sid Karin, and the center’s manager of security technologies, Tom Perrine.

Like many student projects, this one was far from finished by the end of classes. Cohen recalled Karin asking if they planned to finish up, or whether some other students could pick up where they left off.

Cohen and Knight kept at it, and a 10-week project was done in a year.

Part of their success derives from FTP’s structure, which Cohen describes as a two-lane highway. Secure FTP only encrypts FTP’s command channel, while not taking up time to encrypt the large file traveling over the separate data channel.

“We’ll be recommending Secure FTP as a new service to all our researchers and partners,” said the supercomputer center’s Perrine. “We’ve been trying for years to eliminate plain text passwords from our networks, and an especially useful feature of Secure FTP is that it doesn’t force bulk data encryption, which can greatly slow things down and isn’t important to most of our scientific users.”

The Secure FTP program may now be downloaded for free from the supercomputer center (http://secureftp.sdsc.edu). It’s also available for free on the Web site of Cohen’s UCSD-area company, Glub Tech Inc. (www.glub.com).

Glub Tech, incidentally, takes its name from Glubby, a fish character from a story Cohen wrote during his school days. Cohen’s L.A.-area schoolmates thought that would be a great thing to call Cohen, and the nickname stuck.

The supercomputer center estimates Secure FTP has been downloaded 8,500 times since its introduction in September. Glub Tech’s Web site says the count is pushing 10,000.

The program works for transfers over Windows or UNIX-based systems, and is available in English, Japanese and Italian. French and German versions are planned.

Cohen, who has a day job with Adobe Systems Inc., called Secure FTP “a glorified proof of concept” which will probably remain a free download.

He said he is hoping to make money on a second version of Secure FTP, and has plenty of improvements in mind , including a version for the Mac.

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