[4567] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
RE: Starium announces STU-III for the masses
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lucky Green)
Thu Apr 29 15:39:07 1999
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 20:32:06 +0200 (CEST)
From: Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>
To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net, cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990429103807.0096e810@idiom.com>
Starium is selling hardware. The protocol for their current generation
devices, of which I own one, has been public for years. I am not surprised
that Eric is continuing this tradition for their next generation boxes.
However, releasing protocol specifications is not synonymous with
releasing a compatible software implementation. If you want to have a
compatible software implementation, somebody would have to write it from
the protocol specification. Which may be easier said than done, for
technical reasons that I explained to the Harmless Little Project folks
over a year ago. See the HLP mailing list archive at
https://www.cypherpunks.to/hll/list/threads.html
Eric is doing all the right things, his design just doesn't lend itself to
software emulation very well, which is fine, since ease of software
emulation, unlike it was for the HLP, is not a design criterion for Eric's
devices.
--Lucky
On Thu, 29 Apr 1999, Bill Stewart wrote:
> At 09:05 AM 4/29/99 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
> > I asked Eric if the protocols will be published, so that compatible
> > software implementations can be created.
> > He said yes.
>
> Great! BTW, this sounds rather like the Harmless Little Project,
> which appears to be moribund. HLP proposed designing a
> Harmless Little Board that you could build for about $100,
> with a compatible software implementation.
>
> While that appears not to have happened, there are a number of
> $5 full-duplex sound cards, $20 28.8k modems, and cheap DSP
> and CPU chips around that designing a board to sell in that
> price range should be reasonable assuming you can sell enough volume.
> I'm glad it's actually being done!
> Thanks!
> Bill
> Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
> PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
>
-- Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> PGP v5 encrypted email preferred.
