From: Graham Toal <gtoal@an-teallach.com>
Date: Thu, 5 May 94 13:16:31 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Keyserver service outage
Message-ID: <199405052012.VAA13561@an-teallach.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


: Not true.  The problem is copyright, which is honored by Berne Convention
: signers even if they don't have software patents or patent-after-publishing
: rules like the US.  This includes Europe, the U.S., and many other places.
: ViaCrypt 2.4 is copyrighted by ViaCrypt, and RSAREF is copyrighted by RSA,
: so you won't be able to use 2.5 source outside the US either; not sure about
: binaries.

: There's an easy cure for this, though - if some non-North-American wants to
: write an RSAREF-compatible software package in C and distribute it as freeware,
: then it can be used in non-US versions of things that require RSAREF.

You misunderstand what the RSAREF stuff does - it isn't an alternative
encryption - it's being used to replace the extended precision etc stuff
in pgp to make a 100% compatible version.  So the current pgp *is*
already 100% compatible, as long as its version number is >= 2.4 (which
by an amazing coincidence mines happens to be since I've had to
edit a couple of mission-critical comments since I got 2.3a ;-) )

Even if 2.5 checks version numbers or *any* internal details in the
pgp packets, as long as it is constrained by being compatible with
ViaCrypt 2.4, we can always *guarantee* to be able to make a compatible
free pgp based in 2.3a.

And since the RSA and IDEA patents aren't valid in Europe, this
is 100% kosher.  You guys use MIT-PGP and we'll use free pgp 2.5

G