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Re: 40bit DES? & IBM Patents
and further I believe the draft:
draft-hoffman-des40-02.txt
is NOT using CDMF....
so the whole thread about the IBM patents is kind of moot.
John
Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
>
> From: Bob Baldwin <baldwin@RSA.COM>
> Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 08:55:46 -0700
>
> Let me tell you a cautionary tale about 40 bit DES
> and the IBM patent. The SET Protocol design committee
> agreed to add IBM's 40 bit DES (called CDMF) as a mandatory
> part of the SET protocol. IBM wrote a letter that said that
> the CDMF patent would be licensed in a non-discriminatory
> way for $10,000 plus a "MINOR" concession. This all seemed
> reasonable, so the committee made it a mandatory feature.
> What was the MINOR concession? Oh, that was simply to
> agree not to enforce any of your company's patents against
> any part of IBM worldwide, in exchange for using this one
> little patent from IBM. Does this seem fair?
>
> On the other hand, it's fairly common for a company to grant a no-cost
> license to use a patent for protocol XYZZY to require that other
> companies must grant a no-cost license to that company if other patents
> turn out to be necessary to implement protocol XYZZY. This has
> generally to be considered a good thing.
>
> That being said, there are other ways of doing 40-bit DES without using
> CDMF that aren't patented, and while I dislike 40-bit crypto, patent
> problems are really a legitmate excuse not to use 40-bit crypto.
> (Someone should have done a favor and patented the concept of using
> 40-bit crypto, just as Apple patented the concept of using reusable
> one-time pads. :-)
>
> Furthermore, no one has suggested using CDMF, so any further discussion
> about patent licensing issues would not seem to be related to the work
> of the ipsec wg.
>
> - Ted
References: