Re: An EDIINT Short Status/ Request

[Tom Darling <tdarling@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:25 PM 5/1/96 PDT, Carl wrote:
>rsedc@urgento.gse.rmit.EDU.AU (David Chia) writes:
>: Tom Darling <tdarling@albany.net> writes:
>: >  When we leave PGP behind, one
>: > clear problem (for me, probably not for someone competent) on the
>: > DOS/Windows side is the lack of encryption engines in the form of callable
>: > subroutines. I confess, I am a low-life sinner

  An interesting place to cut off my comment :)

>I believe PGP (and DOS PGP) uses RSAREF. RSA has a couple of developers
>toolkit software packages for encryption. The S/MIME vendors probably all
>use this. 

  Last I looked RSA was "threatening" to come out with a new, easier to use
version "real soon now." The impression I got was that RIPEM conceivably
could be used to make access to RSAREF easier, but again I didn't pursue
that to deeply, and am not sure if there is enough flexibility in RIPEM to
enable a MOSS-compliant hack.  After I get just so deep into these documents
(especially after 10 pm), MEGO (my eyes glaze over), and I haven't had an
absolute requirement to figure them out, or take good morning hours to
carefully peruse them.

>I don't know the royalty and licensing requirements with this
>software, and this seems to be information that is not available and
>must be negitoated. There is a $1-$3 or 1%-3% patent royalty required,
depending on
>which algorithms are used.

  I remember seeing the same thing somewhere on RSA's Web site, but I also
got the impression that before those rates applied there was a big initial
licensing charge. It was only an impression, and I may have been mistaken
because the verbage was obfuscatory.

>PGP uses the IDEA algorithm with a noncommercial license. I believe there
>is only a single supplier of the commercial version. I wonder if PGP3
>will truely be free of patent and licensing problems.

  Good question.

Best,
Tom

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