Digital Security for Free

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,38635,00.html

by Karlin Lillington
3:30 p.m. Sep. 7, 2000 PDT

DUBLIN, Ireland -- In a surprise move following Wednesday's release of
the patent on the main security algorithm used in digital security
products, Baltimore Technologies will offer one of its key developer
toolkit products for free from its website.

In the past, the toolkit elements would have cost developers $10,000
to $20,000.

Dublin-based Baltimore, the third-largest company marketing security
products following its January merger with U.S.-based CyberTrust,
hopes the free availability of the toolkit will encourage developers
to incorporate public key cryptography into many more applications.

Baltimore believes this will help seed the security products market,
already expected to be worth 287 million by 2003, according to analyst
Datamonitor.

The patent for the so-called RSA algorithm was owned by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology but has been licensed to the
same company, recently renamed RSA Security, for 17 years.

Companies using the algorithm for products sold in the United States
-- including international companies such as Baltimore -- have had to
pay large licensing fees to RSA Security.

The patent and RSA's enforcement of it have been controversial, and
critics say the company's tight control on its commercial use has
hobbled the growth of the computer security industry, with many
developers seeking ways to avoid using the algorithm.

"Over the past two decades the RSA patent and other public key patents
did more to suppress the deployment of public key cryptography than
the NSA," said Phil Zimmerman, inventor of personal cryptography
product Pretty Good Privacy.

"As long as this patent was in effect, anyone who used it was a
sharecropper on someone else's land," Zimmerman said in a statement.
"Now at last we can breathe freely and implement our own code."

The patent was due to expire on Sept. 20, but RSA suddenly announced
it would release the algorithm to the public domain. Many industry
experts say the expiration of the patent will significantly alter the
security industry and help support the growth of e-commerce.

"The unhealthy exploitation of the RSA patent has been one of the most
controversial aspects of e-business in recent years," said Michael
Duffy, Baltimore's developer product marketing manager.

"Most industry experts agree that it has held up the growth of
e-security and e-commerce," he said. "The expiry of the patent is a
good day for customers and a great day for e-business."

Baltimore will overhaul and rename many of its product offerings to
reflect the shift in the way it can use the algorithm.

The company can now market several products into the United States
that in the past were blocked by RSA licensing restrictions. In
addition, the software developers outside the U.S. who use their
toolkits can now market products they develop with them into the
country without restrictions as well.

But the most significant move is likely to be the company's decision
to consolidate several of its developer offerings into two basic
toolkits -- one called "Lite" and one "Professional" -- and to offer
the "Lite" version online by Sept. 20 for free.

Baltimore believes the offer will encourage many more software
developers to create security products, which will have a knock-on
effect in growing its own market.

But the company acknowledged it also now faces increased competition
in the security products market.

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