🚀 go-pugleaf

an3596@anon.penet.fi asks why PGP is available outside the U.S.
but ripem won't be so distributed.

PGP was coded outside the U.S. and incorporates IDEA, which is a
non-U.S. encryption method. (By the way, it would be a delicious piece
of irony against those who are taking RSA's invention without
compensation by using pgp, if IDEA were well and truly broken by the
NSA, the Japanese, the French, the British, the Tibetans, and your
commercial competitors.) Thus PGP does not violate the restriction
against exporting DES since it doesn't use DES, though it cannot be
imported legally into the U.S. where it violates RSA's patents. Some
argue it can't be imported into the U.S. without a Munitions Act
license either.

ripem was coded in the U.S. and uses DES. DES cannot be exported
outside a few specific countries without a license which will not be
granted by the U.S. authorities. Thus ripem is not legally available
there. Since ripem's use of RSA's patented technology is licensed by
RSA, it does not violate their patents in the U.S.

By the way, I like the phrasing I came up with for this message: "using
RSA's invention without compensation".  I think even those who argue
that they're doing nothing wrong since RSA's patents don't apply in
most countries would agree that the phrasing is accurate. I think even
those who argue that software or algorithms shouldn't be patented will
agree that the phrasing is accurate. And the notion in that phrasing
is at the core of my ethical argument, with which (to save replies)
I acknowledge some disagree.

David