Re: [9fans] crypto licensing

[Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca>]

> Right, that's what I understand but I can't *prove* it. Are there places
>  online where I can find a verified current status for algorithm
> specific licenses? Like, is there someplace that RSADSI says "yes, we've
> let go of MD5 and RSA for public use."?

RSA was restricted by patent, since expired. The top item when I Google 
"rsa patent" is a CNN story about RSA corp releasing the patent.

Similarly, a Google search on "cryptography idea patent" returns a first 
hit on Wikipedia that lists the US patent number (5,214,703) along with a 
note that the patents expire in the 2010-11 time-frame.

You get the idea ...  You need to track down the relevant patent numbers, 
then see when they expire(d).

--lyndon

   I think 3B2 code deserves its own place in hell.  Poring over the
   ESS#5 code, someone found that there were lots of strcmp(p, "f(")
   == 0 checks (I may have gotten the exact string wrong but it's
   close).  It took us a while to figure out why.  Apparently, location
   0 on the 3b had the 3 bytes 'f' '(' '\0', someone noticed that when
   programs blew up they were pointing to "f(", and the worlds most
   amazing kludge for detecting nil pointers was born.

   			-- Dave Presotto