Free at last

Jack McKinney jackmc-gnupg-users@lorentz.com
Wed, 6 Sep 2000 15:19:51 -0500


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Big Brother tells me that Marc Mutz wrote:

> Stop it! STOP IT!
>
> On every ml concerned with crypto stuff this pr is announced by someone
> 8or even multiple individuals).
>
> It is only 14 days (read _two_ weeks) until the patent expires so this
> is an absolute joke. It's just there to let RSA Security stand out as a
> generous company, which it may be or not.
>
> Stop that celebration.
As a fellow mathematician, let me point out that the celebration is not over the release. There are many who have champagne bottles earmarked for Sept. 20: Pick a positive integer. Raise it to another positive integer. Then, find the remainder when divided by a third number. Then, pay a royalty for what could easily have been a question on a Number Theory exam testing the student's knowledge of the powermod algorithm for quickly computing exponents in Z_n. The celebration is that an algorithm that corresponds to two basic mathematical operations that have been in use for centuries is finally being returned to the public. Patenting the RSA algorithm is like copyrighting the fact that Americans answer the phone 'Hello', or the japanese 'Mushi, mushi'. It is obsurd. It is now moot. The celebration you are seeing everywhere was going to happen two weeks from now, exactly 16 years, 50 weeks later than it should have. It is just happening early. - -- "In God We Trust. Jack McKinney Everyone else we monitor." jackmc@lorentz.com -Former NSA employee http://www.lorentz.com F4 A0 65 67 58 77 AF 9B FC B3 C5 6B 55 36 94 A6 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBObamy0Zx0BGJTwrZAQHW5gP8CjKquQC9TlRu3MjtJ1I0YTPbvVLiSttT W++vTYL8BYfl086THgU23ERexzp4PhBQlIwF3LehH163OVkGWaERD9yHpm0YCAxT pjKoci0CXTDgW3dZWoQh7IbGGAMC2tRxLRF1SwY3mQpgw6J0y80N2uTSIiqrQxSi rM7mXslPJ+k= =P2Jw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Archive is at http://lists.gnupg.org - Unsubscribe by sending mail with a subject of "unsubscribe" to gnupg-users-request@gnupg.org