[PATCH] RSA RC4

[Michael H. Warfield]

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On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 04:40:20AM +0100, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> "Michael H. Warfield" <mhw@wittsend.com> writes:

> > On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 12:23:26AM +0100, R=FCdiger Sonderfeld wrote:
> >> On Saturday, 7. December 2002 00:16, you wrote:
> >> > On Fri Dec 06 2002; 23:04, R=FCdiger Sonderfeld wrote:
> >> > > I wrote a implementation of RSA RC4 for the libgcrypt. I hope the
> >> > > implementation is usefull and bug free :)
> >
> >> > What's wrong with arcfour.c which is already part of Libgcrypt?
> >
> >> ups :) I thought arcfour is a different algo :)
> >
> > 	The "hint" is in the name...
> >
> > 	It's "A"RC4...  Alleged RC4.  From the time is was alleged to
> > have been leaked/stolen/reimplimented.  It was alleged because it wasn't
> > their code but it did 100% of what their code did.  If it walks like a
> > duck and it quacks like a duck and it smells like a duck it must be
> > an alleged duck (when intellectual property gets involved).

> I can't help but feeling that this is silly.  At least adding a
> comment, or even better an enum type mapping RC4 to ARCFOUR would
> prevent the confusion.

	Probably true.  The RC4 vs ARC4 vs ARCFOUR debate goes back to
the early appearance of a public "RC4" and RSA's claim that it really
wasn't RC4 and then their claim that is was copyrighted and then their
claim that it was trade secret (or maybe it was the other way around).
Somewhere in there, someone changed the name to ARC4, I think, to avoid
some claims of Trademark infringement.  Yup, it's caused a lot of
confusion for a lot of people.  Yup, much of it could have been avoided.
I don't know about the "an enum type mapping RC4 to ARCFOUR" but
when intellectual property rights issues get involved if things weren't
so pathetic, I would agree that they would be silly.  At least the
damn thing wasn't patented like IDEA.

	Mike
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