Re: IDEA Status?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hi On Wednesday 23 June 2010 at 5:35:19 AM, in mid:5154913f-ea7e-44ed-a67b-20c5e2998...@jabberwocky.com, David Shaw wrote: So it's still patented, [...] It's not even clear where you could get a license if you really had to use IDEA. [...] I understood that for non-commercial use, IDEA was freely available for use and that licences were only needed for commercial use in the countries where it is patented. - -- Best regards MFPAmailto:expires2...@ymail.com Teamwork is essential - it allows you to blame someone else -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- iQCVAwUBTCJAj6ipC46tDG5pAQpfzgP+Jm6rPhwmB70GBUJyWY0aKnjaAZ28CaRj 7wOuZl4WM5yMk6io9udmxS0JuJaQlSk8XKkN+OGgRdXqIOebgniNygZWoOyACuii 2rn0ciGS7anLp3hZ3HMY9c3KzOUZ/0X3YsjU6dWz+E6fJFogLYseRAyHL40z4owB xSewfqd3EC8= =lx0n -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: IDEA Status?
On 6/23/10 1:12 PM, MFPA wrote: I understood that for non-commercial use, IDEA was freely available for use and that licences were only needed for commercial use in the countries where it is patented. Sure, but that makes it incompatible with the GPL -- and that incompatibility puts some severe restrictions on redistribution. There are some (arguable) workarounds around it, but by and large it's best to avoid the entire can of worms. We don't need IDEA, so why wrestle with the Patent Monster? ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: IDEA Status?
On Tue, 22 Jun 2010, Robert J. Hansen wrote: On 6/22/10 10:09 PM, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: Is this very old and it's now supported? Or is it still not in for some other reason (either oversight, legal, or other). By modern standards, IDEA is not considered a promising cipher. There are some very good theoretical attacks against it. Between the varying patent expiration dates (2011 or so in some countries, IIRC) and the thin safety margin, the GnuPG community has generally decided IDEA is not a priority for inclusion. Could the FAQ be updated then, assuming you speak with some authority? -Dan -- Ca. Tas. Tro. Phy. -John Smedley, March 28th 1998, 3AM Dan Mahoney Techie, Sysadmin, WebGeek Gushi on efnet/undernet IRC ICQ: 13735144 AIM: LarpGM Site: http://www.gushi.org --- ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: IDEA Status?
On Jun 22, 2010, at 10:09 PM, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: The FAQ for IDEA states that The official GnuPG distribution does not contain IDEA due to a patent restriction. The patent does not expire before 2007 so don't expect official support before then. (http://gnupg.org/documentation/faqs.en.html#q3.3) Is this very old and it's now supported? Or is it still not in for some other reason (either oversight, legal, or other). I'm not sure about the 2007 patent expiration - I recall it being right around now, actually (2010-2011). In any event, it's mostly not supported. IDEA in OpenPGP is a funny thing - it sort of missed its useful window because of the patent stuff. PGP 2.x used it, but when things went to OpenPGP, 3DES was used instead, and IDEA was downgraded to a SHOULD implement in the first OpenPGP spec, and then downgraded further to a MAY implement in the revised spec. Time moved on, and better ciphers became available, so these days even though the patent is expiring, there isn't really a use for IDEA outside of interoperating with users of PGP 2.x. I'd be surprised to see much PGP 2.x usage these days. OpenPGP even explicitly rejects making new PGP 2.x-style keys. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: IDEA Status?
On 6/22/10 10:30 PM, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote: Could the FAQ be updated then, assuming you speak with some authority? I am correct, but I am not authoritative. I'm not one of the GnuPG developers, so I have no authority to make declarations on behalf of GnuPG. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: IDEA Status?
On 6/22/10 10:39 PM, David Shaw wrote: I'm not sure about the 2007 patent expiration - I recall it being right around now, actually (2010-2011). A little digging around revealed the United States patent expiration: January 7, 2012. I am not a patent attorney, I don't pretend to be an authoritative source on patent law. All we can say definitively is the original patent expires January 7, 2012: subsequent patents may have extended this date. ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
Re: IDEA Status?
On Jun 22, 2010, at 11:25 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote: On 6/22/10 10:39 PM, David Shaw wrote: I'm not sure about the 2007 patent expiration - I recall it being right around now, actually (2010-2011). A little digging around revealed the United States patent expiration: January 7, 2012. I am not a patent attorney, I don't pretend to be an authoritative source on patent law. All we can say definitively is the original patent expires January 7, 2012: subsequent patents may have extended this date. So it's still patented, starting to show cracks, and only really used for compatibility with a very deprecated key type and codebase. It's not even clear where you could get a license if you really had to use IDEA. The mediacrypt.com site where you can get a license was offline for a long time. It's back online now (and goes to the Nagra/Kudelski page, which may be amusing to those who used Nagra reel-to-reel tape recorders at one point - odd what companies expand into), but I still see nothing about IDEA licensing. David ___ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
