Is it legal for commercial companies to use PGP?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

jgrubs@voxbox.norden1.com (Jim Grubs, W8GRT) writes:

> As I recall, the following is a correct scenario: a customer can use PGP to
> send credit card numbers to a vendor he's making a personal purchase from,
> but the vendor must use Viacrypt. If the customer is buying something to use
> for business, BOTH  must use Viacrypt.

In practice, I'd probably buy Viacrypt for legal reasons but use PGP anyway.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
Comment: http://norden1.com/~jim/sylvania.html

iQCVAwUBMAu5iN74r4kaz3mVAQF11QQAiNccy69sb5OA1jmOpErqqZNJ4sNx3smW
tAJQ3lD1op4qlPIO48vxwkvr+IaQyyOkf797+9Ca1z9WtxgwSamo32BQnPQZ6Pbm
Vipmpwrabrxq67TOrGgxNp3UN7oBZl3eyad0hIj6ENzs8u1wi3wkHUV/3z341XB7
u953orkOZSk=
=UYrt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
                        WebCasters(tm)
James C. Grubs                         jgrubs@voxbox.norden1.com
6817 Maplewood Avenue                         Tel.: 419-882-2697
Sylvania, Oh 43560                             Fax: 419-885-2814
   Internet consulting, HTML programing, Information brokering

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

    From: "Jim Grubs, W8GRT" <jgrubs@voxbox.norden1.com>
    Date: Tue, 18 Jul 95 09:36:51 EDT

    In practice, I'd probably buy Viacrypt for legal reasons but use
    PGP anyway.

I'd be interesting in hearing some of the lawyers out there comment on
this.  While I know that I can test interoperability, I prefer using
something that I compiled myself which I think is not an option with
Viacrypt.  This is not to say that I could swear that I understand all
of the code that I compiled for the free versions of PGP, but (a) I
have spent considerable time looking at the parts that were most
interesting to me -- even translating some things to other programming
languages and (b) I know that others have also examined the code and
nobody has come up with anything terribly damning.

			Rick

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBMAxDnpNR+/jb2ZlNAQGSWgP/QpeKiOTHFo9x9OMqHyO0iyUoF0RPkZL3
iRnIWNNKCdRWPw4jc6j0m3toG7mnvBt5v/jK122nrbeZBbzEpxGgovA2imOKeD9e
r09irO0Yo7G/T12yXgHOoaJ+69OPUhQFIUnPJGAJ2o5uEaLzRUlfDcsHQYtcx6sT
aRCR9NsbDMM=
=JsSF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
Rick Busdiecker                        Please do not send electronic junk mail!
 net: rfb@lehman.com or rfb@cmu.edu    PGP Public Key: 0xDBD9994D
 www: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/rfb/http/home.html
 send mail, subject "send index" for mailbot info, "send pgp key" gets my key

> Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com> writes:
>   From: "Jim Grubs, W8GRT" <jgrubs@voxbox.norden1.com>

>   In practice, I'd probably buy Viacrypt for legal reasons but use
>   PGP anyway.

>I'd be interesting in hearing some of the lawyers out there comment on
>this.

Does RSADSI count as having lawyers?  So far as I know they have not
commented in public about whether the ViaCrypt license is valid, but
they have also not (to my knowledge) contested it.  However, Jim Bidzos
has explicitly said that it is not acceptable to buy a ViaCrypt license
to cover your use of non-ViaCrypt PGP.

	Jim Gillogly
	Hevensday, 25 Afterlithe S.R. 1995, 23:53

> 
> 
> > Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com> writes:
> >   From: "Jim Grubs, W8GRT" <jgrubs@voxbox.norden1.com>
> 
> >   In practice, I'd probably buy Viacrypt for legal reasons but use
> >   PGP anyway.
> 
> >I'd be interesting in hearing some of the lawyers out there comment on
> >this.
> 
> Does RSADSI count as having lawyers?  So far as I know they have not
> commented in public about whether the ViaCrypt license is valid, but
> they have also not (to my knowledge) contested it.  However, Jim Bidzos
> has explicitly said that it is not acceptable to buy a ViaCrypt license
> to cover your use of non-ViaCrypt PGP.
> 
> 	Jim Gillogly
> 	Hevensday, 25 Afterlithe S.R. 1995, 23:53

IANAL, but I find this position to be stretching the limits of
credible grounds for a successful lawsuit.  My reasoning is that most
(all?) patent and copyright lawsuits are based on theft of services or
other forms of lost income.  If you collected a fee for a usage that
was identical in function to one that actually took place, (or even
close) I don't see how you could argue that any income was lost.

Technically he can decide what to allow as the license 'owner'/controller,
but that's different from having standing to sue.

sdw
-- 
Stephen D. Williams 25Feb1965 VW,OH (FBI ID) sdw@lig.net http://www.lig.net/sdw
Consultant, Vienna,VA Mar95- 703-918-1491W 43392 Wayside Cir.,Ashburn, VA 22011
OO/Unix/Comm/NN       ICBM/GPS: 39 02 37N, 77 29 16W home, 38 54 04N, 77 15 56W
Pres.: Concinnous Consulting,Inc.;SDW Systems;Local Internet Gateway Co.;28May95