[82] in Cypherpunks
Re: Tough Choices: PGP vs. RSA Data Security
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sy Verpunc)
Fri Apr 30 10:00:28 1993
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 13:57:57 GMT
From: Sy Verpunc <svp@gtoal.com>
Reply-To: cypherpunks@toad.com
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
From: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@athena.mit.edu>
From: Sy Verpunc <svp@gtoal.com> (Graham Toal)
Thats what people have *always wanted* to do. RSA won't let them. That's
why any talk of a newer friendlier Bizdos is bullshit.
Have you actually tried?
*I* don't need to. PKP don't have a patent in Britain.
Several people from RSA, including Bidzos at the last Cypherpunks
meeting at Mountain View (I wasn't there, but take a look at the meeting
"minutes"), have stated repeatedly that if someone were to ask for
permission to use the internal interfaces of RSAREF in order to write a
PGP-compatible program, they would grant permission.
That's *NOT* what we want to do. We have perfectly good code that we trust
already, called pgp. We're offering to pay a patent licence for pgp, not
some RSADEF-derived code with DES that we don't trust. Hell, *I* would even
pay a license fee for pgp and I'm not even legally obliged to...
However, as of two weeks ago, *NOT* *A* *SINGLE* *PERSON* *HAS* *ASKED*.
Because that's the wrong question.
G
