Subject: RE: Do people have something against RSA?

From: Hal Lockhart <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 12:14:29 -0400

> The TSP draft is well along and I don't envision holding it up, 
> waiting for the RSA patent to expire.  The document adopted an 
> algorithm approach consistent with IESG policy, and with other 
> crypto-based RFCs.  Let's just stick with that.

I agree and predict that algorithm support will be a frequent type of
modification. For example, all the specs that deal with symmetric algorithms
will upgrade to AES, most likely as the required choice, once that selection
occurs.

Hal
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Harold W. Lockhart            Entegrity Solutions
2 Mount Royal Avenue          Marlborough, MA 01752 USA
V: 1-508-624-9600 x 260       [email-masked]
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From: "Christopher Williams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 18:35:18 +0100

OK, maybe RSADSI are litigious and awkward to deal with.  I don't know, I've
never dealt with them.  However, let's say that I implemented a standard,
say TLS, and only included the mandatory cipher suite, DSA with ephemeral
Diffie-Hellman, SHA-1 and 3-DES encryption.  You know what?  It wouldn't
work with anything!  Everybody else's implementation uses RSA so mine has to
as well, whether I like it or not.  The reality is that RSA is mandatory and
DSA the nice optional extra which adds spice and competitive advantage.

As to whether the future belongs to RSA or maybe some recent innovation like
ECC or some as-yet uninvented scheme, as Microsoft shows, it's not being the
best that makes you the winner, it's being the most widespread.

So, given that:
 - RSA's patent is due to expire (news to me, but welcome news)
 - DSA has patent issues in Europe
 - Everybody uses RSA anyway; very few use DSA

Can we please start mandating RSA in future?  It will make implementing
standards much easier and remove the FUD because I haven't incorporated
support for Diffie-Hellman!

Christopher Williams

Software engineer, NetLexis Ltd.
http://www.netlexis.com "Intelligent Trust"

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 09:43:19 +0200

[email-masked] said:
> However, let's say that I implemented a standard, say TLS, and only
> included the mandatory cipher suite, DSA with ephemeral
> Diffie-Hellman, SHA-1 and 3-DES encryption.  You know what?  It
> wouldn't work with anything!  Everybody else's implementation uses RSA
> so mine has to as well, whether I like it or not. 

Is seems to me that your reasonoing is flawed in that you assume that
"everone else" will *not* include the *mandatory* cipher suite.
The whole idea of having mandatory cipher suites in the first place
is to assure at least one common fall back algorithm.

Best regards,
//Mats