sasaki@harvard.ARPA (Marty Sasaki) (04/25/85)
Please forgive me if this is a topic covered before. I have just started
to read this group.
I have gotten involved with software distribution. Much of the software
requires that a copy of a UNIX source licence be sent before I can send
the software out. When I get the software, I then copy things to tape
and mail the stuff out. When there is an update, I have to send tapes
out again, or possibly mail the diff's.
It would be very convenient if I could just use electronic mail to send
things out (when the code is small, I'm not about to send multi-megabyte
messages). To get around the problem with illicit reading of
information, I thought that encrypting the code before mailing would be
a good idea. When someone sent me a copy of their UNIX license, they
could also send me the key to use in the encryption. When updates
occured, I would merely encrypt the update and mail it off, secure in
the knowledge that only the authorized party could read it.
Is this approach a reasonable one? If it is, could someone send me
either a pointer to an algorithm, an algorithm, or better yet, a program
to do the encryption/decryption?
Crypt(1) is not really feasible since many of the machines are not UNIX
machines and the code for Crypt(1) belongs to AT&T.
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Marty Sasaki net: sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
Havard University Science Center phone: 617-495-1270
One Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (05/01/85)
The status of encryption algorithms as interpreted by the courts is extremely unclear. I would VERY strongly recommend AGAINST the distribution of licensed software materials via the networks, even if encrypted. You'd just be asking for trouble by trying it. --Lauren--