Subject: Warning: PKIX Freeware Library may be withdrawn

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 17:57:48 -0400

I thought I should alert people to a situation evolving concerning the PKIX
Freeware Library that was jointly written by Iris, Lotus, and IBM. The
source code for all but the crypto has been available on
http://web.mit.edu/pfl for domestic distribution and on
http://www.foobar.com/jonah for worldwide distribution for some time. It
excludes crypto functions that are available separately from Cylink.

Included in the PKIX Freeware Library code is some crypto interface code
originally developed by Intel and adapted to this use. Intel recently
announced publicly that they are releasing for free distribution a large
body of crypto interface code that includes a newer version of that
interface. But there are indications that they are also going to declare
the version used by PKIX to no longer be freely distributable.

If that happens, we will be required to pull the code from all posting
sites under our control. I thought I should let people know in case this
affects their plans to embed this code in other products.

The PKIX Freeware Library could be adapted to use the new versions of the
Intel crypto interfaces, or more likely could replace them with direct
interfaces to the Cylink code. But I am not aware of anyone planning to do
that work. If anyone does so, I hope they will post it so that others can
take advantage of it.

     --Charlie Kaufman
     ([email-masked])

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed may not even by mine by the time you read
them, and certainly do not represent those of any other legal entity. It's
also possible that this message is not from me at all, but rather was
forged.