From: thumper <thumper@kaiwan.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 94 20:02:59 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: legally circumvent the Sept 1,94 Legal Kludge, Program Part 000
In-Reply-To: <199407240908.AA19968@xtropia>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9407242114.B17771-0100000@kaiwan.kaiwan.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



[Much deleted...]

I was fortunate to talk with Phil about the legal kludge bug at DefCon II 
in Las Vegas this past weekend. Basically the point he gave to me about 
not bothering to bypass it is that it only gives more ammunition to the 
patent holders. It took quite a bit of time and money to agree upon the 
RSAREF licensing for PGP 2.6, bypassing the feature because of the bug 
only recreates more tension for Phil. 

In his presentation saturday morning at the DefCon convention, he said 
that like all free software, it's pretty much beyond anyone's control 
to prevent it from getting exported anyways, just like pirated software, 
and it had unfortunately arrived in Europe already. IMHO, I figure they 
already got it, what's to stop them from using version 2.6 outside of the 
U.S. My main point is to just use 2.6 and let 2.3a use die off since 
everyone basically already HAS 2.6 inside AND outside of the U.S. and not 
give the patent holders any more reasons to come down harder on him and 
cause tighter restraints put on cryptography in general since this has 
been an obvious example that cryptography software cannot be kept within 
the U.S. no matter how many precautions they took to not let it get out.
He told me that there's nothing wrong with 2.6 and just encouraged me to 
use 2.6 as it was intented to be used. After talking with him face to 
face, seeing the kind of person he is, it sorta opened my eyes. I mean 
while talking to him about this, I could tell how much he has been 
through over this, and how he really wishes that every joe blow doesn't 
come up with "NEW" versions of it. This is just a situation where too 
many cooks can spoil the soup.

Now I see this message about PGPEU. I know this is probably an open 
invitation to get flamed but let's give it a break. Yes, PGP is freeware 
and able to be modified and distributed, but bypassing features requested 
by the patent holder is only going to cause trouble for a such a nice guy 
like Phil. He did us all a great service by creating a program like PGP, 
and it cost him alot. Distribution of modified versions of PGP only puts 
us back to where we were with 2.3a. Everything we do affects each other's 
futures, and I think during the battlecry of "Down with clipper" and 
modified copies of PGP, some of us tend to forget how this will all 
affect the person who opened up our eyes and showed us that we did need 
strong encryption for the average user.

[Please direct all flames to /dev/null]

Thumper (yeah, just Thumper) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- GREP THIS NSA! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-
thumper@kaiwan.com           - PGP NSA ViaCrypt 2600 Phrack EFF #hack LOD/H =
Finger for PGP 2.6 Pub Key   = 950 FBI MindVox ESN KC NUA QSD Hacker DEFCON -
Big Brother *IS* watching!   - SprintNet MCI AT&T HoHoCon DNIC TRW CBI 5ESS =