In message <x7itdij7tz.fsf@capsicum.wsrcc.com>, Wolfgang Rupprecht writes:
>
>Can netbsd's ipsec along with isakmpd or racoon be used for privacy
>with random remote hosts?  Older user-land protocols like ssh will
>allow two hosts that have never communicated and have no shared
>secrets to establish a secure connection.  (Well, with the one proviso
>that one can't really guard against a man-in-the-middle attack.)  Can
>netbsd's ipsec be setup in a similar fashion?  It would be really nice
>if all incoming and outgoing IP connections would go via some secured
>method and only fall back to non-ipsec methods if the other side
>declined the isakmp negotiations.  Is this possible?

There's work on the subject being brought to the IETF, and there is (I 
believe) Liux code to do this.  The buzzword is "opportunistic 
encryption".

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
		Full text of "Firewalls" book now at http://www.wilyhacker.com