Re: cryptix java AES effort

Ian Grigg (iang@systemics.com)
Sat, 24 Jan 1998 16:47:57 +0000

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Adam kindly forwarded the AES quest blurbs to interested and/or
interesting groups. Some slight clarification is required in the detail
of who and what.

Adam said:
> Systemics provides a BSD licensed (free for commercial and
> non-commercial use) java crypto library called cryptix.

A slight modification: Systemics provided, in the past tense.

It was always the belief of those at Systemics at the time that selling
crypto was extremely hard without contacts into big companies (in which
case, you weren't selling crypto...). When Cryptix stabilised it was
published as freeware with a BSD-style of license, with the hope that
other people would pick it up and start to work with it.

With the Java library this has happened. There is now a team of between
4 and 10 people, depending on how you count them, scattered across the
globe, improving the core Cryptix code. Over the last year or so, we
codified the notion of the independant group working around the library
as the Cryptix Development Team. That is now spreading through the
doco.

( There are a few issues such as copyright and the brand name, which are
beyond the scope of this email. Whilst Systemics is not entirely
passive in this area, it does not sell Cryptix code, although it might,
and does, sell services such as improving Cryptix code. Also, those who
work/have worked at Systemics are also part of the team. )

The AES quest is a Cryptix operation. I.e., Cryptix Development Team,
and not Systemics. It is a completely unfunded (although sponsorship
would be appreciated) and volunteer effort. Whilst the NIST people earn
a salary, and most of the cryptographers are employed in this capacity
as well, there is no especial interest in employing programmers here, as
any rational company will simply wait until the winner is announced,
sometime in the next millenium, and then employ an expert at $300 per
hour to tell them all about it.

Rationally or otherwise, we still need programmers to code up the
algorithms and prepare them for submission to NIST. For many
cryptographers, it is beyond their efficient capabilities to know much
about the downstream discipline, so it makes sense for them to outsource
the work to a team like Cryptix, especially as NIST has loaded up the
submission requirements with 3 separate implementations.

If you're thinking now's the time to branch into Java crypto, read the
blurb and mail us. The rational part is that if you start now, you
might be earning fat fees in a few years time.

> http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/I.Brown/cryptix/aes/AES_crypt.html
> http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/I.Brown/cryptix/aes/AES_prog.html

-- 
iang                                      systemics.com
FP: 1189 4417 F202 5DBD  5DF3 4FCD 3685 FDDE on pgp.com

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