Re: Sternlight & PGP

17 Dec 2003

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greg@ideath.goldenbear.com (Greg Broiles) wrote:
...
[...]
Derek's list is incomplete; Sternlight also alleged that there were
"copyright problems" with PGP, insinuating that some of the code in PGP
had been copied (or derived from) RSAREF code - he backed down pretty
quickly when asked for substantiation. He also wrote to the administrators
of US-based FTP sites, suggesting that PKP/RSADSI was contemplating legal
action against them if they didn't stop making PGP available via FTP. I
suspect (but cannot prove) that he was also the person who reported those
FTP sites to Bidzos, thus creating the lawsuit threat that he then pretended
to protect the FTP sites from.
He also recently wrote to Netcom administrators, encouraging them to take
action against a user who included a public key marked 2.3a in his
.plan file.
Re: copyrights, I have yet to hear Herr Sternlight say that pgp23a does
not have copyright problems.  He may not be asserting that as much,
but he has yet to recant.  It all started in a discussion about NAFTA,
GATT and patents.  Someone posted a passage from GATT about expansion
of copyrights (NOT patents).  He then used that post to assert that
pgp23a infringes in Europe.  When it was pointed out that the discussion
had been about patents, he asserted that pgp23a also violated copyrights
(I think he was just too embarrassed to admit confusing patents and
copyrights).  When I last asked him directly about why he thought pgp23a
violated, he used the fact that the pgp doc's referred to itself as
"contraband" as evidence.

Re: SternCop, he wrote to support@netcom.com complaining that he had found
a pgp23a key in beker@netcom.com's .plan file.  Netcom told him that
he should take the matter up with PKP/RSADSI.  Beker posted Sternlight's
message here and I forwarded it to alt.security.pgp.  This really bugged
Sternlight and he then wrote ANOTHER letter to support@netcom.com
asserting that beker had violated his copyright.  He also sent me
a similair message and told me that he knew the Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Board and that I had better publicly apologize to him.
He warned me that his complaints about me would not go to postmaster but
rather to his own contacts.  Why he thought economists would care about
usenet is beyond me.  Anyway...  support@netcom.com told him they didn't
think beker violated his copyright and if he wanted to pursue the matter
further he should sue beker.  I have yet to hear about his complaints
about me.  If he did complain to anyone about me, they must've completely
blown him off.

Anyway, my all-time favorite Sternlight quote follows:
...
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Message-ID: <strnlghtCpH991.8GK@netcom.com>
Reply-To: david@sternlight.com (David Sternlight)
Organization: DSI/USCRPAC
Date: Sun, 8 May 94 05:34:13 EDT
...
[...] Something did snap, and it did so
with the death of Richard Nixon. On thinking of his achievements, and the
way he was savagely hounded by the left all his life (not without cause, but
not deserving of the extreme demonizing he got), I decided it was time to
stop pussy-footing around here, and start calling jerks, cowards, hoodlums,
and defamers for what they were. [...]
rgds-- TA  (tallard@frb.gov)
I don't speak for the Federal Reserve Board, they don't speak for me.
pgp fingerprint: 10 49 F5 24 F1 D9 A7 D6  DE 14 25 C8 C0 E2 57 9D

Re: Sternlight & PGP

Tom Allard