Matt Blaze <mab@research.att.com> writes: John Markoff has a piece on the RC4 betrayal in the Business section of... ... Bidzos speculated that the NSA could revoke RC4's export status as a result of the disclosure.
Bidzos may not need to worry about this or ask damages for loss of export status, if Michael Ernst spoke to the right people for the attached msg. Jim Gillogly Hevensday, 28 Halimath S.R. 1994, 17:50 _________________________________________________________________________ From: mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Michael Ernst) Newsgroups: sci.crypt Subject: Re: opinions of RC2 alogrithm Message-Id: <MERNST.93Apr1155147@swallow.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 1 Apr 93 20:51:47 GMT References: <1p7g2m$57g@bilbo.suite.com> <16BA010AC1.C445585@mizzou1.missouri.edu> Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu Organization: MIT Lab for Computer Science Lines: 15 In-Reply-To: C445585@mizzou1.missouri.edu's message of 30 Mar 93 00:58:03 GMT
The RC2 algorithm is unpublished. Perhaps you could ask a representative of RSA whether its remaining unpublished is one of the conditions of its fast-track approval for export. (My impression was that this *is* one of the conditions of its pre-approval for export, but I am not certain.)
The RC4 algorithm is also unpublished and also exportable at 40-bit key strength. A couple of weeks ago I asked NSA whether just RSADSI, or both NSA and RSADSI, want to keep the algorithm secret. NSA told me that they would be delighted to see the algorithm published, but that RSADSI wanted to keep it a trade secret, presumably to protect their intellectual property. Given the parties involved, extra disclaimers must apply. -Michael Ernst mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu _________________________________________________________________________