RC4 article in Saturday (Sept 17) New York Times

Jim Gillogly jim at acm.org
Mon Sep 19 10:55:05 PDT 1994



> Matt Blaze <mab at 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 at theory.lcs.mit.edu (Michael Ernst)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: opinions of RC2 alogrithm
Message-Id: <MERNST.93Apr1155147 at swallow.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 1 Apr 93 20:51:47 GMT
References: <1p7g2m$57g at bilbo.suite.com>
	<16BA010AC1.C445585 at mizzou1.missouri.edu>
Sender: news at mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Lab for Computer Science
Lines: 15
In-Reply-To: C445585 at 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     The RC2 algorithm is unpublished.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 of RSA whether its remaining unpublished is one of the conditions of its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The RC4 algorithm is also unpublished and also exportable at 40-bit key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 at theory.lcs.mit.edu
_________________________________________________________________________






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