“Classic web technologies have made it very easy to build insecure web-based systems. Writing secure web services and clients takes some works because the web was founded on the idea of openness rather than privacy and security. The original web authentication protocols, such as Basic authentication, are primitive compared to the network authentications protocols used [...]

Robert Vamosi CNET News.com Published: 03 Mar 2003 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2131302,00.htm