Re: Releases

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA@localhost>]

> [...], but DES, 3-DES, IDEA, CAST, DSA (I think), are all public
> domain.  The only issue is export from the US.

WRT IDEA, whether or not any aspect of it is in the public domain with
respect to copyright law, there is an organization that is believed to
hold a patent on it.

The relevant text from Applied Cryptography is

    IDEA is patented in Europe and the United States [1012, 1013].  The
    patent is held by Ascom-Tech AG.

References 1012 and 1013 are "International Patent PCT/CH91/00117, 28
Nov 1991" and "U.S. Patent #5,214,703, 25 May 1993" (if I've copied
everything correctly).

Applied Cryptography also remarks, when describing CAST, that it "is
patent-pending".  No specific jurisdictions are mentioned.

(All text from Applied Cryptography is from my copy, which is ISBN
0-471-11709-9, and dates from 1996.)

> Interestingly, if the CVS source for a crypto branch was located in
> Canada, things would be easier.  US citizens can export source and
> binaries for strong encryption to Canada.  Canada has no restriction
> on export to the rest of the world.

This last sentence is quite definitely false when applied to crypto
which came from the USA.  Thus, I believe the first sentence is false
as well.

                                        der Mouse

                               mouse%rodents.montreal.qc.ca@localhost
                     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B