At 05:48 PM 4/26/96 -0400, David Mazieres <dm@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:

...

5) the price of RSA is fairly low, once free RSAREF came out RSAREF does not give you RSA. Do not think that you can write and distribute free software that uses RSA encryption in the US just because of the existence of RSAREF. If you don't believe me, let me tell you a little story. [ really atrocious story of RSA's non-responsiveness, deleted] The RSAREF license strictly requires that you only use the documented RSAREF interface, which does not include direct access to the RSA functions.

Yeah, that's a good point, and it'd slipped my mind since the PGP permission was eventually granted. For some applications of RSA, you can use RSAREF to do them; you may have to not mind an extra DES layer thrown in where you really don't need it, and the resulting ugliness. (But at least encrypting a random session key with a random DES key doesn't provide much hook for a DES-cracker.) # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215