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In this paper, we investigated the costs of network security
protocols. We used a variety of benchmarks to determine how IPsec
performs under a wide range of scenarios. Our experiments (and in
particular our macrobenchmarks) have shown that IPsec outperforms all
other popular schemes that try to accomplish secure network
communications. Even though this safety comes at a price, which is
present no matter which protocol one uses, it is possible to get
enough performance for practical use by using dedicated cryptographic
hardware. This price may easily be acceptable for many applications
and environments, given the remarkable flexibility and transparency
offered by IPsec.
Stefan Miltchev
4/17/2002