[747] in libertarians
Re: Zimmerman case
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sethf@MIT.EDU)
Fri Feb 24 13:17:47 1995
From: sethf@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 13:13:17 -0500
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
>| Sorry, while it would be nice to think of this case as motivated
>| by an evil government repressing The People, it was in reality
>| instigated by an evil businessman in the service of monopolistic goals
>| and distortion of the free market. The export-control nonsense is one
>| side of the story. But the other side is the RSA software patent, a very
>| broad legal monopoly defended in the name of intellectual property rights.
>What exactly does the RSA patent cover? All public-key cryptography?
>Or just the dual prime number scheme that is at the heart of RSA?
There are actually several patents and two companies formally
involved. There are the Diffie-Helman patents, which DO cover ALL
public-key cryptography, and the RSA patent, which seems to claim any
modular mathematics scheme (not just dual-prime - that's simply one form).
You can get the exact patent numbers from the RSA FAQ, available
via anonymous ftp to rtfm.mit.edu, directory pub/usenet/sci.crypt .
> Anyway, there must be *some* evil motives in the government. Otherwise,
> why didn't they tell Bidzos to go get his own lawyer and stop trying to
> get them to do his dirty work?
It's much more a case of stupidity rather than malice, but
that's not really accurate either. Look, imagine you are an official in
the Customs department. To you, a public-key cryptosystem means the city
morgue corpse drawers. One day in walks the president of this company. He
complains greatly of some sort of theft. What's been stolen, is he
asking you for investigative help or interdiction? He points to Federal
munitions regulations, talking about export violations. Would you throw
the guy out of the office? Of course not.
In fact, it could be said that a major effort of the defense has
been to try to educate the relevant people as to just what exactly is
going on. There hasn't actually been an indictment - yet. That's a clue
that this case is business-driven, not government-driven, because the
parts of the government that deal with electronic activities more
directly (e.g. the Secret Service) don't operate in such a deliberative
fashion. The evil intent comes exclusively from the private sector, in
the form of Bidzos. With it would be ideologically comforting to think in
terms of Big Brother, the appropriate archetype is more like Robber Baron.
================
Seth Finkelstein
sethf@mit.edu
