[79818] in Cypherpunks
Re: Encryption--RSA v. PGP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bodo Moeller)
Sat May 10 21:53:21 1997
Date: Sun, 11 May 97 02:51 GMT+0200
From: Bodo_Moeller@public.uni-hamburg.de (Bodo Moeller)
To: aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk
Cc: cypherpunks@sirius.infonex.com
In-Reply-To: <199705082209.XAA01949@server.test.net>
Reply-To: Bodo_Moeller@public.uni-hamburg.de (Bodo Moeller)
Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>:
> Kevin Connolly <kconnolly@EVW.COM> writes on cyberia-l forwarded to cpunks:
>> RSA Data Security, Inc. filed an action [...] against Pretty Good
>> Privacy, Inc. [...] The complaint [...] alleges that PGP's license
>> is derived from a license to Lemcom, which in turn has been
>> terminated.
>> This might well mean the end of PGP.
> I don't think so.
> PGP has been standardising on El Gamal which is not covered by RSA's
> patents,
[...]
> There is still the putative claim by RSA that they have a blanket
> patent covering `any public key system', but it sounds like they are
> not relying on this claim here.
That claim does not come from RSADSI. You seem to be referring to the
Hellman-Merkle patent, which is controlled by Cycom (the other of the
formerly so-called Public Key "Partners").
However, PGP will use DSA for signatures. Both Cycom and RSADSI claim
that patents held by them (the Diffie-Hellman patent and the Schnorr
patent, respectively) cover the Digital Signature Algorithm (and that
the patents held by the other side don't). Cycom's patents will soon
expire, but the Schnorr patent is not that old. We might have to
expect some lawsuits from RSADSI against sellers of software that uses
DSA (unless they prefer paying for licenses to getting sued). I think
the Schnorr patent was no cheap buy for RSADSI, so Bidzos probably
expects something in return.
