The RC4 algorithm is copyrighted by and intellectual property of RSA Data Security. For use of this algorithm in a product or service you plan to sell, you may use the RC4 software implementation from our BSAFE toolkit. Licenses are not available for other commercial software implementations of this algorithm other than what is included in our BSAFE toolkit.
I wasn't aware that you could copyright an algorithm. Patent, yes, but not copyright. Intellectual property meens secret, right? Aren't there any precendence cases involving propriety schemes that are reverse engineered? I know there have been, I just can't remember what they are. In any case, RSADSI is likely to sue anyone who attempts to use the RC4 code openly, and even if they lose there are considerable legal fees involved for whoever tries it. What if a bunch of people put secure HTTPd servers online at the same time, without any clear trail pointing to the first one? If the RC4 code really is legal to use, this would make it hard for RSADSI to pinpoint anyone to sue, thus eliminating the intimidation factor.
RSA wants money (this comes from speaking with an RSA sales guy - Dave Garifolio, who incidentially sends out really neat RSA folders full of info you can take out of the folder and put elsewhere leaving you a cool folder) for the toolkit, thats all. They send you to some sister corp of theirs and then charge you for the license. Dave tells me there might be a chance you could buy one kit from RSA, design the server and anyone who wanted to use it could pay something like a $300.00 fee to lic. the thing. However, in the aformentioned folder, Dave sent me all kinds of "we want big cash" paperwork, which I have yet to read (as anything you've gotta put in a really cool folder to get me to read can't be worth the time out from sleeping.)
By the way, since RSA is such a vocal opponent of the Clipper chip on the grounds of its secret Skipjack algorithm, why does it market secret algorithms like RC4 and RC2? Does this seen like a double face to anyone else?
Uh, yeah. Jason Weisberger jweis@primenet.com http://198.147.97.19/~jweis