Dr. Dobb's Journal October 1997
Since its birth about two years ago, the SSH protocol has become immensely popular and is now the de facto standard for encrypted remote logins over the Internet. It started out as a replacement for the Berkeley UNIX r* commands, when one university student, Tatu Ylönen, realized they were too insecure for his needs. He wrote the ssh programs because he needed them, and added features that made his work easier. Others found the programs equally useful, and the rumor quickly spread all over the Internet. People ported ssh to other platforms and helped Ylönen merge the changes into SSH, and numerous improvements were rapidly assimilated into the distribution.
SSH soon grew too large to be handled by one person, so Ylönen founded SSH Communications Security Ltd. to further develop the technology. A close partner with Data Fellows Ltd. provided ready marketing channels for new products, several of which were announced and released by the end of 1996. Version 2.0 of the SSH protocol is already in use. The success of the SSH protocol is closely related to the success of the ssh programs.
Products by Data Fellows and SSH Communications Security have won several important awards, including the European IT Grand Prize 1996 (the premier EU IT contest) and a Data Communications Hot Product 1997 award. In addition to the commercial products, freeware or noncommercial versions are available.
For more information, see http://www .DataFellows.com/ and http://www.ssh.fi/.
-- C.S.