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Breakthrough
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 00:51:00 -0500
FYI - More info: Kurt Stammberger, RSA Data Security, Inc. 415/595-8782 To download RSAREF and RIPEM, send any message to rsaref () rsa com RSA DATA SECURITY ANNOUNCES DIGITAL SIGNATURE SOFTWARE THAT IS FREE AND LEGAL WORLDWIDE Information superhighway gets free tool to authenticate information; an answer to Vice-president Gore's concerns over Internet break-ins --------------------------------------------------------- Redwood City, Calif. (March 21, 1994) - RSA Data Security, Inc. announced today a first: digital signature software that is both free and legal worldwide. RSA applied for and received a "commodities jurisdiction," or CJ for a software package called RIPEM, which was built with RSA Data Security's RSAREF toolkit, a freeware package. A CJ, which is a ruling that the software falls under the Commerce Department's jurisdiction as opposed to the State Department, allows RIPEM to be freely and legally exported. Further, RSA has relaxed the use restrictions in its free crypto toolkit. RSAREF, and any application built with it, may now be used in commercial settings as long as it is not sold or used to provide a direct for-profit service. Digital signatures are produced using the RSA cryptosystem, which is a public-key cryptosystem. Each user has two keys - one public and one private. The public key can be disclosed without compromising the private key. The RSA cryptosystem was invented and patented in the late 1970's by Drs. Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Electronic documents can be "signed" with an unforgeable "signature" by using a document/private-key combination to produce a signature unique to the author/document. Anyone, by using only RIPEM and the public key of the author, can verify the authenticity of the document. Applications of digital signatures are endless. One reason that the paperless office has never materialized is that paper must still be printed so that handwritten signatures can be applied. RSAREF and RIPEM solve that problem. Expense reports, any electronic forms, administrative documents, even tax returns can be electronically signed to speed electronic document flow and eliminate fraud. Information on the Internet can be signed and verified to prevent spoofing. Recently, unauthenticated messages at Dartmouth College caused an important test to be cancelled; messages impersonating faculty were sent out. "Data mailed, posted, or put on servers on the Internet is inherently untrustable today," said Jim Bidzos, president of RSA. "Tampering with electronic documents takes no special skills, and leaves no trace. With the availability of a free, legal, and exportable tool such as RIPEM, there's no need for such a situation to continue. It can be used by individuals, corporations, and government agencies at no cost." In a February 4th announcement, Vice-president Gore stated that the recent Internet break-ins could have been prevented with digital signatures. "Here they are," said Bidzos. Recently, cryptography has caused clashes between government and industry, over privacy issues, law enforcement concerns, and export issues. "The US government has approved this software for export," said Bidzos. "Clearly, it's no threat to them. And it's free." Digital signatures can also be used to detect any virus before a program is executed, since any change whatsoever is detected. The RIPEM application was developed using the RSAREF toolkit by Mark Riordan of Michigan State University. A Macintosh version, developed by Ray Lau of MIT, the author of the popular "Stufit" program, is also available. Versions for DOS, Unix, and all popular platforms are supported. "PEM" stands for Privacy Enhanced Mail, a published Internet standard for secure electronic mail. Other innovative applications can also be built with RSAREF and distributed at no cost. RSA digital signatures are a standard feature of Lotus Notes, the Apple System 7 Pro Operating System, Novell NetWare, Microsoft Windows at Work, Windows NT, IBM System Security Products, DelRina PerformPro, WordPerfect InForms, SHANA InFormed, BLOC F3 Forms, Fischer International Workflow, and numerous other products. Over 3 million commercial products in the market today already use RSA signatures under license from RSA Data. Other RSA licensees include General Magic, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Unisys, DIgital Equipment Corp, Motorola, and numerous others. RSA Data Security, Inc. designs, develops, markets, and supports cryptographic solutions toolkits and products. The company was founded by the inventors of the RSA cryptosystem in 1982 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.
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