From owner-freebsd-security Wed Jul 26 09:57:07 1995 Return-Path: security-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.11/8.6.6) id JAA28047 for security-outgoing; Wed, 26 Jul 1995 09:57:07 -0700 Received: from halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu (halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.159]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.11/8.6.6) with SMTP id JAA28032 for ; Wed, 26 Jul 1995 09:57:05 -0700 Received: by halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu; (5.65/1.1.3.6) id AA08451; Wed, 26 Jul 1995 12:57:00 -0400 Date: Wed, 26 Jul 1995 12:57:00 -0400 From: Garrett Wollman Message-Id: <9507261657.AA08451@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu> To: Bill Trost Cc: security@freebsd.org Subject: Re: secure/ changes... In-Reply-To: References: <199507261107.EAA08554@tale.frihet.com> Sender: security-owner@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk < said: > in the United States. In particular, the international versions of > PGP contain their own implementation of RSA, so any use of those > versions of PGP are violations of PKP's patents on the algorithm. Almost. PKP doesn't hold the patents, just exclusive licensing rights to them. Most of the original patents are held by MIT, Stanford, or both, although I can't remember who has which one. > Keep this in mind when planning what software to import. Both RSA and > Diffie-Hell?man are covered by patents (although the latter expires in > 1997). And public-key cryptography in general is also covered by a patent, which expires this year or next. Unfortunately, nobody has yet found a practical PKE scheme other than RSA. Disclaimer: Although Ron Rivest is indirectly my superior (he is a director of the Lab), I have never met the man and do not speak authoritatively on this subject. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@lcs.mit.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. Opinions not those of| It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people MIT, LCS, ANA, or NSA| who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant