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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:20:46 ADT
Bob Baldwin (baldwin@rsa.com)
Tue, 21 Jul 1998 15:26:48 -0700
First, let me repeat (since my message seems to have
been lost in the brief crash of the Listserver) my comment
on RSADSI's posture on AES:
|>On Mon 7/20/98 12:13 PM, Bob Baldwin wrote:
|>My understanding of RSADSI's intent is that
|>if RC6 is selected as the AES, then any use of it
|>will be OK without payment to RSADSI.
Second, let me make it clear that specific matters of
RSA's intellectual property claims are handled by RSA's
General Counsel. I'm in RSA Engineering.
I don't mind offering non-legal opinions (and I'm
relatively well informed as to what technology is available
from RSADSI and elsewhere,) but I'm obviously not in a
position to argue the scope of the RC5 patent claims.
I'll leave that to experts on the List and elsewhere.
I'm also not in any position to declare RSA's RC6 sales
and licensing policy, if indeed one is yet available.
Sorry, Kent. I'm sure RSA's sales guys are willing to
talk to anyone, or respond to email to talk to anyone, or respond to email to sales@rsa.com.
Third, in another message apparently dropped by the
Listserver, I responded to Perry's claim that:
>>DES has been routinely used in weird new modes, and IBM never
>>attempted to enforce the patent on it under any
>>circumstances. They
>>accepted that DES was no longer something
>>they should expect to profit
>>from.
I pointed out that IBM has (and does) enforce its patents for
digest functions based on DES (as well as, and in addition to,
any other block cipher) called MDC-2 and MDC-4. It also has a
patent on using DES to create a 40-bit keyspace version called
CDMF. Both of these "weird new modes" for DES are patented and
IBM does in fact enforce them. Perry is right that they do not
seem to enforce the DES patent rights against non-FIPs uses of DES,
but they do have other related patents, which they do enforce.
My point is that engineers need to be careful about assuming
too much when they hear that one specific patent is invalid,
exipred or not enforced.
My comments on what I understand to be the context for patent
claims around a government crypto standard (as defined by
IBM and NIST in the context of DES) are based on concrete
examples like those above. This is not speculation.
For my part, in my comments to NIST, I have urged that
the new AES be defined in to broadest possible way, so as to
encompass the greatest possible array of implementation modes.
Specifically, I have encouraged NIST to define PRNG, Digest
and key derivation modes that an implementor can use for free.
Fourth, let me withdraw my playful (;-) comment about
RSA-bashing. Open and free discussion of all AES candidates
and the corporations behind them and all ramifications of the
AES choice is necessary and useful, indeed vital. In this,
I agree completely with John Kelsey's comment:
>I think it's important to raise them now, and get them
>answered in public before an AES candidate is selected as
>the new standard.
I'm not, however, going to get into a pissing contest
with Perry or anyone else with regard to RSA's intellectual
property claims. At least here in RSA Engineering, we realize
that (a) because RSA was among the pioneers in establishing
both intellectual property claims and defacto standards in
cryptography, and (b) because RSA learned to street-fight to
survive the long years during which the US Govt. sought our
demise, people like me must expect to receive an extra ration
of guff when we venture onto the Net. That is fine with me.
The benfits of participating are worth the occasional fire.
--Bob Baldwin
Technical Director, RSA Data Security
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:20:46 ADT