From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 94 05:50:51 PDT
Subject: Re: Jim Bidzos
In-Reply-To: <940926072942126@.mn.org>
Message-ID: <9409261250.AA19682@snark.imsi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



samuel.kaplin@.mn.org (Samuel Kaplin) says:
> Unfortunately Herr Bizdos is not dealing with the business community, he is
> dealing with the INTERNET community.

What does that mean? You mean that RC4 was released somehow only to
the "internet community" and somehow the rest of the world isn't
involved?

> While all the sabre rattling may be acceptable within the business
> community, it is not acceptable within the INTERNET community.

There is no "internet community". There is the U.S. and its laws.
Jim Bidzos has food in his fridge only in so far as RSA DSI makes
money. RSA DSI makes money only in so far as he defends their
intellectual propery claims under U.S. law.  This does not make his
behavior what I would call nice, but it does EXPLAIN it. Jim Bidzos's
motives are crystal clear. He isn't a mystery. He's a guy who's job is
making money off of RSA DSI's patents and other intellectual property,
and so far as I can tell everything he's done has always been
completely consistant with that. Whether you LIKE the fact that he
does his job well isn't the point.

Lots of people act as though they found his note on RC4 suprising.
What did you expect? A letter saying "thank you for reducing my firm's
profits"? His methods are precisely the ones that you would expect him
to be using.

Perry