Netscape 4.5 Full Strength

Netscape Communicator 4.5 Full Strength was a pivotal internet suite, Netscape Communicator 4.5 Full Strength was a pivotal internet suite, most notably for its unrestricted 128-bit encryption. This was a significant leap, as previous versions often faced U.S. export restrictions, limiting international users to weaker 40-bit encryption.

The "Full Strength" version offered robust security for online transactions, e-commerce, and private communications via SSL. Beyond the Navigator browser, the suite included Messenger (email), Collabra (newsgroups), and Composer (HTML editor). Released in 1998, 4.5 was a refinement of the Communicator series, aiming to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer amidst the browser wars. It represented a commitment to strong security and a comprehensive internet experience during a transformative era.

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 13:01:06 -0400
From: Vin McLellan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Subject: Upgrading Netscape 4.5 to full-strength crypto (FW)

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but the old perl script for
Netscape 4.0x that upgrades an export binary to use full-strength
crypto doesn't work on 4.5. They added some extra binary cruft that
also needs to be patched. A working script is in my sig. Enjoy.

Rob
--
[Robert O'Callahan, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~roc, 5th year CMU CS PhD student

Upgrade your export version Communicator 4.5 to full-strength crypto:]
#!/usr/bin/perl5 -0777pi # Run on your "netscape" binary
s/KEY-BITS:.*?\0/$_=$&;y,a-z, ,;s, 512,2048,;s, {4}$,true,gm;$_/es;
s!\*:Q\xbf/q.{46}(.).{33}!substr($t=$&,54,ord$1)=~y,,\1,c;$t!egs

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