Re: RSA patents in EP limelight

El Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 11:20:30PM +0200, Holger Blasum deia:
> The exhibition by the European Patent Office in the 
> European Parliament tomorrow highlights the RSA (US4200770)
> and DH patents US4405829 on public-key cryptography. 
> 

Ok this is probably esterile especulation, and I will possibly 
not pursue it further, but I've always 
fancied what the world would be like with no patents on PK criptography.

My impression is that the internet has exploded on the wings of 
unpatented protocols and formats and one of its main shortcomings
has been security. And security is not only a scientific  problem 
but a cultural issue about how people interact with computers,
how do they look at those interactions, what do they trust, etc. 

Would the web have evolved to be a safer place if PK had been 
as readily available as TCP ? Would we all be used to certificates, 
trust relationships and secure protocols as we are to information 
retrieval, hyperlinks and ubiquity of network access ? 

Of course there have been other problems (export restrictions, etc.) 
and having free criptography wouldn't have solved everything, but...


-- 
- jo també vull una Europa lliure de patents de programari  -
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Xavi Drudis Ferran
[email protected]