[Full-disclosure] <Cisco Message> Mike Lynn's controversial Cisco Security Presentation

[J.A. Terranson]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005, Jason Coombs wrote:

<cutting to the chase>

> Now, if RC4 had never been used to create a product and had been kept as
> a trade secret, and that secret had been published, then it would not
> have become, automatically, an unencumbered algorithm that could be used
> by anyone with impunity. There being no way other than theft of trade
> secret for a third party to come to know the algorithm, had a court
> order been obtained to halt the spread of the secret the algorithm
> itself could very well have been kept as protectable intellectual
> property until such time as the company that enjoyed a commercial
> advantage through preservation of their RC4 trade secret had concluded
> the public distribution of a product that somebody else could have
> reverse engineered.

The problem here is essentially one of mass distribution.  There are now
*millions* of copies of these "secrets" in general circulation.  Nobody
can assert with a straight face that anything about Lynn's presentation is
not completely and totally within the public view - and irretrievably so.

-- 
Yours,

J.A. Terranson
sysadmin at mfn.org
0xBD4A95BF


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