From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 18:13:25 +0800
To: David Mazieres <dm@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: RSAREF dos not give you access to RSA
Message-ID: <199604270629.XAA05305@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 05:48 PM 4/26/96 -0400, David Mazieres <dm@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>> 5) the price of RSA is fairly low, once free RSAREF came out
>RSAREF does not give you RSA.  Do not think that you can write and
>distribute free software that uses RSA encryption in the US just
>because of the existence of RSAREF.  If you don't believe me, let me
>tell you a little story.
        [ really atrocious story of RSA's non-responsiveness, deleted]
>The RSAREF license strictly requires that you only use the documented
>RSAREF interface, which does not include direct access to the RSA functions.

Yeah, that's a good point, and it'd slipped my mind since the
PGP permission was eventually granted.  For some applications of RSA,
you can use RSAREF to do them; you may have to not mind an extra DES
layer thrown in where you really don't need it, and the resulting
ugliness.  (But at least encrypting a random session key with a random
DES key doesn't provide much hook for a DES-cracker.)
#					Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215