Project Resources
There are standard libraries that provide basic security functions that
you will want to start investigating. For C and C++ users, the
OpenSSL library, found at http://www.openssl.org/
is a widely used toolkit providing encryption, authentication, key
management, and SSL functionality. For Java programmers the JSSE
is a standard package in Java 1.5 that provides similar functionality.
See
Sun's JSSE reference guide
for details.
You should also have a basic understanding of XML. Each project
will use a protocol based on XML messages. All project groups
doing the same project will work together to standardize this protocol.
This will significantly increase testability of your projects,
which in turn will help increase quality. For example, the house
from one team's Poker project should be able to accept players from
another team's implementation. A variety of XML parsers for
various languages can be found at http://xml.apache.org/.
Information about the XML support built into Java can be found here.
Here
is a link for .NET security information. However keep in mind that you are
largely on your own as far as implementation if you choose .NET.