[908] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
forward: RSA Suit against PGP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Tue May 27 13:49:05 1997
Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 13:45:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net
Reply-to: perry@piermont.com
From: vin@shore.net (Vin McLellan)
Newsgroups: comp.security.pgp.discuss,alt.security.pgp,talk.politics.crypto
Subject: Re: RSA Suit Against PGP
Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 03:17:45 -0500
Organization: The Privacy Guild
Message-ID: <vin-2405970317450001@vin.shore.net>
FYI: The RSA/PGP case file is now online. Reading it may leven this
discussion with more fact and winnow out some of the passion and vitriol.
(Then again, maybe not...;-)
RSA Data Security filed a "Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive
Relief" against PGP, Inc., on May 6, 1997 (CASE No. 400585) In the
Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo.
The text of the RSADSI Complaint may be read at:
<http://jya.com/rsavpgp.txt>
Two exhibits were attached to the Complaint:
(A) the 4/16/97 letter from RSADSI's attorney to PGP Inc., terminating
the
Lemcom/ViaCrypt/PGP Inc. license agreement for cause, which is now
available at: <http://www.parrhesia.com/rsapgp.html> -- and
(B) the full 1992 license Agreement between PKP and Lemcom Systems,
which is now available at: <http://jya.com/pkplem.htm> (longish, 41k)
PGP, Inc. has not yet filed a response to the RSA Complaint.
The only real aftermath to the suit, AFAIK, was the apparent revolt in
the PGP, Inc., Board of Directors. On May 13th, after the PGP Board had
considered the RSA allegations for a week, there was a bloodbath at PGP Hq
in San Mateo.
Dr. Thomas Steding, who had been PGP's President and CEO, was summarily
bounced. He was replaced by Phillip Dunkelberger, a Symantec sales
veteran who had been PGP's VP for Sales. Phil Zimmerman, who had been
Chairman of the Board, was removed from that position. He was replaced by
Jonathan Seybold, of Seybold Seminar and Seybold Publications, who had
been a member of the PGP board for a year. Zimmerman, whose personal
presence is rather central to PGP's corporate identity, was retained as
Chief Technology Officer, but other PGP executives and managers who were
said to have been close to Zimmerman were told their jobs had been
eliminated, effective immediately.
I got a note, the same day, from one PGP exec who was looking for a
job. The Seybold Coup and the rain of pink slips had taken him completely
by surprise, he said.
I'm not without allegiances in all this (the Privacy Guild has done
consulting for SDTI, the compsec company which bought RSADSI in '96, for
many years) but I've been a privacy activist for 30 years, had PGP since
v.20, and -- like almost everyone professionally involved with infosec --
I've followed the long Zimmerman/RSA conflict with obsessive fascination.
It's a tale of myth and legend. Everyone involved seems larger than life:
Zimmerman, Ron Rivest, Jim Bidzos, Bobby Ray Inmann, Adi Shamir, Len
Adlemann. In fact, even today, everything about public-key crypto still
seems vastly out of scale: issues, impact, politics, people, potential --
not to mention the NSA, the spidery but gargantuan Queen of the American
Intelligence Communiy.
Against that background, Zimmerman's volatile relationship with the
three guys who actually invented the RSA public-key cryptosystem; and with
Bidzos, RSADSI's vocal and ascerbic President, has perhaps inevitably left
a legacy of passion among many PGPers which has very little to do with
patents and the petty legalities of intellectual property rights.
The RSA/PGP suit is not, however, about free public access to PKC
crypto-enabled privacy tools or secure e-mail. Nor is it (any longer)
about a bearded Lone Crusader -- all but caped -- thumbing his nose at
corporate America.
Everyone grew up. Everyone wears a suit. Everyone holds stock options.
This is now a dispute between two multi-million dollar corporations over
the terms of a contract and the case law that defines the scope and
context of that contract's provisions. Contract cases tends to be a lot
more straightforward than patent cases. Even on its own terms, it's going
to be an interesting legal case to watch unfold. But it's no longer
folklore. It's finance and law.
--
Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin@shore.net>
53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA. O2150 USA Tel.(617) 884-5548
