Re: Golden Key Campaign

At  1:11 AM 4/25/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
>At 02:22 PM 4/24/96 -0700, Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>On Wed, 24 Apr 1996, Hal wrote:
>>You can do signatures with Rabin too.  I have a version of it in
>>Crypto++ 2.0.  It's been out for a while and RSA hasn't bothered me about
>>it.
>>Does anyone want to explain why, given the alternatives, people continue
>>to use RSA and pay for it?
>
>Sure.  Because 1) it's a good algorithm for the job,
>2) we've learned it, and have a PGP base behind our inertia,
>3) The legalities of RSA are well-defined,
>4) the Stanford patents mostly run out in 1997, unless Roger's suit
>        succeeds first,
>5) the price of RSA is fairly low, once free RSAREF came out
>6) the price of licensing Cylink patents is high and/or unpredictable

I will add to Bill's list:

7) RSA is the best known and vetted of the Public Key algorithms.

Some people say that the millennium comes on Jan 1, 2000.  Others say it
comes on January 1, 2001.  I say it comes on September 20, 2000 when the
RSA patent expires.

Regards - Bill


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In article <199604251927.PAA27960@jekyll.piermont.com> "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> writes:

> From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
> cc: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>, cypherpunks@toad.com
> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 15:27:04 -0400
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> 
> 
> Bill Frantz writes:
> > I will add to Bill's list:
> > 
> > 7) RSA is the best known and vetted of the Public Key algorithms.
> 
> Nota at all, Mr. Frantz. There are no proofs of security associated
> with RSA. Rabin has excellent proofs that breaking a message is
> strictly equivalent to factoring.

Isn't Rabin's algorithm patented, too?  Perhaps the licensing terms
are better.  Does anyone know for sure?

Thanks,
David

David Mazieres writes:
> Isn't Rabin's algorithm patented, too?

There is no patent on Rabin per se.

.pm

What do you mean by "per se"? 

	That it might be covered by the Stanford patents? (Those are
the ones that allegedly cover all public-key, right?)


> 
> David Mazieres writes:
> > Isn't Rabin's algorithm patented, too?
> 
> There is no patent on Rabin per se.
> 
> .pm
> 


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sameer@c2.org writes:
> > David Mazieres writes:
> > > Isn't Rabin's algorithm patented, too?
> > 
> > There is no patent on Rabin per se.
> 	What do you mean by "per se"? 

Rabin is covered by the patents on public key itself. It is the
contention of RSA DSI that the patent on RSA claims all public key
methods that use exponentiation. I do not believe this to be the case,
but I am not the god of patents. There is no direct patent on Rabin,
however.

Perry

Bill Frantz writes:
> I will add to Bill's list:
> 
> 7) RSA is the best known and vetted of the Public Key algorithms.

Nota at all, Mr. Frantz. There are no proofs of security associated
with RSA. Rabin has excellent proofs that breaking a message is
strictly equivalent to factoring.

.pm