From: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 14:24:31 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: RPK Public Key Cryptography
Message-ID: <199607310421.QAA09064@cs26.cs.auckland.ac.nz>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Tall men in dark suits made Stephen Cobb <stephen@iu.net> write:
 
>My apologies to the list if this subject is old hat but someone just pointed
>me to the RPK Public Key Cryptography site and I was wondering what people
>thought of this particular technology.
 
It's just Yet Another PKC.  Look at the history of LUC for a similar example:
An amazing new breakthrough in PKC is announced, after a couple of years of
analysis by cryptographers it's found to be no better or worse than existing
PKC's, but in any case noone uses it because the existing patent covers only
the US and expires in a few years whereas the LUC ones cover much of the world
and will be around for ages.  RPK is a similar case (actually it's in a
somewhat worse position, by the time it's been subjected to enough analysis for
people to trust it, the RSA patent will have expired, making RPK unmarketable). 
Other comments on the system:
 
 - The inventor apparently has no plans to publish details on the system in a
   journal or present it at a conference for peer review.
 
 - Someone who used to work with him rates him as a fairly competent
   programmer.  His crypto skills are unknown.
 
Given what happened with LUC I predict more of the same for RPK.
 
Peter.