How and why more secure technologies succeed in legacy markets: Lessons from the success of SSH
SSH provided superior security while maintaining current functionality. SSH’s acceptance is demonstrated by the fact that installing SSH as an alternative to telnet is now widely considered to be a minimal security practice. The removal of telnet clients is now seen as a best practice [Fenzi, 2002], and this view has further increased the adoption of SSH.
The article examines the general affirmation that communication networks and mobility are important to science by examining how these factors played a relevant role in one specific case, that is, research on the embryology of certain species of armadillos in the early twentieth century. As we show, access to pregnant females of the species and transport time from the wild to the laboratory were significant issues in the early days of such research. The strategies used to obtain field samples, the temporality of certain phenomena, the commercial circuits of which the organisms under study were a part, and the transformations they underwent in the laboratory all afford a glimpse at some aspects of how these scientists approached their work and what problems they faced in producing new knowledge.