Free at last

[Jack McKinney]

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Big Brother tells me that Marc Mutz wrote:
> Stop it! STOP IT!
> 
> On every ml concerned with crypto stuff this pr is announced by someone
> 8or even multiple individuals).
> 
> It is only 14 days (read _two_ weeks) until the patent expires so this
> is an absolute joke. It's just there to let RSA Security stand out as a
> generous company, which it may be or not.
> 
> Stop that celebration.

    As a fellow mathematician, let me point out that the celebration is
not over the release.  There are many who have champagne bottles earmarked
for Sept. 20:  Pick a positive integer.  Raise it to another positive
integer.  Then, find the remainder when divided by a third number. Then,
pay a royalty for what could easily have been a question on a Number Theory
exam testing the student's knowledge of the powermod algorithm for quickly
computing exponents in Z_n.
   The celebration is that an algorithm that corresponds to two basic
mathematical operations that have been in use for centuries is finally
being returned to the public.  Patenting the RSA algorithm is like
copyrighting the fact that Americans answer the phone 'Hello', or the
japanese 'Mushi, mushi'.  It is obsurd.  It is now moot.  The celebration
you are seeing everywhere was going to happen two weeks from now, exactly
16 years, 50 weeks later than it should have.  It is just happening
early.

- --
"In God We Trust.                   Jack McKinney
 Everyone else we monitor."         jackmc@lorentz.com
     -Former NSA employee           http://www.lorentz.com
F4 A0 65 67 58 77 AF 9B  FC B3 C5 6B 55 36 94 A6

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