Vin writes:
On the other hand, it seems to me unreasonable, willfully ill-informed, and/or malovelent to declare -- in the face of several judicial rulings which have firmly ratified the RSA PKC patent -- that "prior art" exists which should have invalidated that patent. Horseshit!
Judicial rulings notwithstanding, a description of that which is now known as RSA Public Key Cryptography was published in a book of algorithms which pre-dated by quite a few years its patenting and commercial promotion by the current patent holders. That exponentiation modulo the product of two distinct odd primes was not easily reversable given knowlege of the modulus and the exponent was hardly a closely guarded mathematical secret, even decades before this fact was employed by cryptographers. All of this was extensively discussed here on Cypherpunks back when disputes over the RSA patent were newsworthy, and I suggest you grep the archives for more specifics. My point was that the US is one of the few countries to permit the patenting of abstract mathematics, albeit it under the guise of some practical "method and apparatus" jargon. The fact that the patent couldn't be successfully challenged even though its mathematical underpinnings were well known years prior reflects badly only upon the notion of mathematical patents, and hardly refutes the facts in evidence.
Stanford and Cylink couldn't find it, despite a highly motivated and well-funded search. They doubtless would have paid you handsomely for your evidence and definitive testimony, but you missed your chance.
Again, (patent not invalidated) != (no prior art) But then, I'm sure you knew that.
Now you'll -- collectively, Sirs? -- just have to settle for being another cadre in the crowd that hoots and sneers at Ron Rivest whenever he comes up with something new which significantly enhances our cryptographic arsenal (and has the gall to patent it or otherwise claim IP ownership.)
One "foo on that" at the notion of patenting mathematics in general, and of patenting ciphers employing data dependent rotates in particular, hardly constitutes hooting and sneering directed at Ron Rivest, whose work is greatly respected in the cryptographic community. But then, I'm sure you knew that too. I'm also pleased to report that the DES Analytic Crack Project is plodding along towards its goal of an algebraic inverse to DES. While the project will generate $10k in sponsorship money when fully subscribed, we have started it off with a much smaller number of sponsors, as quite a few potential sponsors have indicated an interest in seeing some preliminary research results prior to remitting funds. Since we are not hurting for funds at the moment, we have decided to devote 100% of our effort to the project at this time, and will probably not have a further "pledge break" until 8-round DES bites the dust. Then we will try to get the project fully subscribed, do the 16-round crack, and write up the final report. -- Sponsor the DES Analytic Crack Project http://www.cyberspace.org/~enoch/crakfaq.html