From: Adam Shostack <adam@bwh.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 95 11:31:48 PDT
To: stopak@orionsci.com (Noam Stopak)
Subject: Re: patented vs secret (was Re: RC4)
In-Reply-To: <9507271733.AA05542@orionsci.com>
Message-ID: <199507271830.OAA22564@bwh.harvard.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



| I believe the code for RC4 and RC2 is accessible and has been subjected to
| review by many in the crypto field - you just can't use it legally without 
| a license.

	This is not correct.  RC2 is not public; something that
interoperates with RC4 was posted to cypherpunks & sci.crypt last
year.  Neither have undergone any peer review that has been published
(AFAIK).  A paper on RC5 is listed in the Crypto 95 schedule, but
nothing on RC4.

	Also, the usability of RC4 is very open to question.  Since it
was a trade secret, it was not patented.  Several smart people have
said that once a trade secret becomes well known, its out protections.
But few people want to get a nasty letter ffrom RSA's lawyers, so no
one in the US has released anything with RC4 in it without the RSA
licenses.

Adam

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume