Re: Algorithms to generate permutations

From: BRG (brg_at_nowhere.org)
Date: 08/07/05 

Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 13:12:42 +0100

Terry Ritter wrote:

[snip]
>>>Last, this whole idea of "free" is spin:
>>>It does not mean that AES ciphers are "free"
>>>for users: Programmers get paid, and
>>>software owners sell programs at a profit.
>>>Only cipher designers do not get paid out
>>>of this, so the business of cipher design
>>>is not supported, and I suggest that is
>>>no coincidence.
>>
>>I don't see this.
>>
>>The position on algorithm design, algorithm implementation and on
>>software more generally is that some get paid directly for their work,
>>some get paid indirectly through some means or other, and some do not
>>seek payment for their efforts.
>>
>>This phenomena is by no means restricted to those involved in algorithm
>>design.
>
> I claim that my government should not insist
> that designs be only acceptable from large
> corporations, schools or even consulting firms
> willing to pay for the individuals to live while
> they do the development work.

I can understand and sympathise to an extent with your position but I
was only commenting on a very specific point - your claim that AES is
not 'free' because only cipher designers have had to give up making
money from it. This phenomena is not limited to cipher designers.

> The government can reasonably set technical
> standards (for its own use), but demanding a
> particular economic model for the subsequent
> marketplace goes beyond what my government
> should be doing. Unless, of course, that
> government first supported the research and
> development, and then makes the design free
> for the people who have already paid for it.
> Those who did not support that development
> should pay when they use it.
>
> The government which granted my capitalist
> patent rights is the exact same government
> which refused to respect them in a head-to-head
> technological comparison. What is wrong with
> this picture?

It might have sought to buy out any pre-existing rights for the winner
but would this have been possible in an international competetion?

Would it have been possible to spend US tax dollars to buy out worldwide
rights to the benefit of those who are not US citizens?

Would this have forced a US national competition?

Would a purely national US competition have produced an effective result
(either for the US itself or more widely)?

Given the competition was in the middle of the 1990s "crypto wars", what
part did politics play in the NIST decision to run the programme as it did?

I don't know the answers to these questions but I suspect that what NIST
did was pretty effective when compared to some of the alternative
approaches that it might have used.

>>Different economic models sit side by side both within and outside the
>>cryptographic world. Microsoft has to compete with free (GNU) software
>>in the same way that those designers who want to sell algorithms have to
>>compete with those who are willing to offer algorithms without patent or
>>royalty constraints.
>
> I was quite willing to "compete" in the sense
> of a technological competition. But I was not
> *allowed* to compete unless I *also* joined the
> particular economic model demanded by the
> government.
>
> In my view, different economic models compete
> against each other in the open market, *after*
> the design is done. If a profit-based business
> of cipher design comes up with the better designs,
> that should be acknowledged in any technical
> competition. Profit comes later. Not allowing
> that was the problem.

My view is that the programme would have failed if the profit model had
filtered through into the end result though the adoption of an
encumbered algorithm.

> Your setup was intended to imply the reasonable
> existence of different economic models. You
> should be on my side, since what actually
> happened was that my government did not allow
> the different economic models to exist. Instead,
> it demanded I respect a particular socialistic
> model I could not accept. I note that capitalism
> makes most of the money the government used on the
> competition (and everything else).

I would have supported it if a way could have been found to provide a
winning algortihm that was free of patents and royalties on a wordlwide
basis whilst allowing those with pre-existing rights in algorithms to
take part.

I suspect that this was in the 'too difficult' box for NIST.

>>A complicating factor for cryptographic algorithms has been the
>>suspicion that some governments may have used patent and royalty
>>constraints in the past as convenient mechanisms for imposing political
>>constraints on the widespread availability of cryptography.
>>
>>As a matter of principle I won't implement any algorithm that I know to
>>be subject to patents or royalties (even if I am offerred payment to do
>>so). And I am far from alone in taking this view.
>
> Obviously, the whole point of the freedom and
> democracy that I support is that you can do
> anything you want. For example, you can form
> a loose association or cabal of like-minded
> people to denegate, demean and dismiss those
> who not only have investigated and innovated,
> but also have jumped through the legal hoops
> required to acquire the rights you do not have.
> But that does not make your position right or
> even logical:

I am not in any particular camp or cabal and I am not in the business of
denigrating the work of others.

> In my view, machines have *always* implemented
> "algorithms." In my view, there is nothing
> particularly unique about a mechanical machine,
> or an electronic machine, or a software machine.
> Your cabal and the European governments can try
> to obscure the issue, but it cannot go away
> because algorithms are the essence of invention
> and always has been. To define software as
> something different is to try to make a
> distinction which must necessarily become so
> increasingly fine that it disappears under its
> own weight. This is a case where more laws
> can only help lawyers, because an underlying
> factual distinction simply does not exist.

The distinction is arbitrary but the real world is full of examples
where a continuum has to be split into discrete and essentially
arbitraty partitions for practical purposes.

As you say, this offers lawyers good business opportunities.

  Brian Gladman

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