Strong Crypto Code Published Online for Authentication
			Press Backgrounder
		San Francisco, December 23, 1997

The software is being published today as part of Mr. Gilmore's effort to
establish authenticity checking in the Internet Domain Name System.
The naming system is vulnerable to tampering, as was shown in July
when Eugene Kashpureff redirected accesses to Network Solutions' web
page.  The Internet Engineering Task Force has defined a protocol to
add cryptographic checking, and several companies and organizations
are changing the software to match it.

Trusted Information Systems and Mr. Hugh Daniel have submitted formal
applications to the Government, asking whether they needed permission
to export this authentication software.  All of the responses
indicated that no permission was needed.  Since the plain text of the
regulations, and the plain responses of the Government, agree with his
understanding, Mr. Gilmore determined that the rumors emanating from
the National Security Agency were just that, rumors, without the force
of law.

The source code Mr. Gilmore is publishing today is a very early
prototype of the Domain Name System Security software.  This particular
version of the software is more than a year old, cannot be used
commercially, and has numerous problems; it is only recommended for
serious experimenters.  But it is the exact version of the software
which the US Government formally stated did not need export permission.

Mr. Gilmore and the Internet Software Consortium plan to publish much
more modern and usable Secure Domain Name software early in 1998.
These future versions will include the DNSsafe cryptography library,
which permits commercial use, and significantly improves on the RSAREF
software used in the prototype.

John Gilmore is an entrepreneur and civil libertarian.  He was an
early employee of Sun Microsystems, and co-founded Cygnus Solutions,
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cypherpunks, and the
Internet's "alt" newsgroups.  He serves on the Board of Trustees of
the Internet Society.  He has twenty-five years of experience
in the computer industry, including programming, hardware and software
design, and management.  He is a significant contributor to the
worldwide free software development effort.  His advocacy efforts on
encryption policy aim to improve public understanding of this
fundamental technology for privacy and accountability in open
societies.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which Mr. Gilmore co-founded, is
sponsoring a lawsuit to have the entire cryptography export control
regime overturned.  In the three-year suit, Bernstein v. State, Judge
Marilyn Hall Patel invalidated both the State Department and Commerce
Department export controls.  She ruled they are an unconstitutional
prior restraint against our First Amendment right to speak and publish
about cryptography.  The case is now in the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals.

Domain Name System Security:		http://www.toad.com/dnssec/
				or	http://www.flash.net/~dnssec/
Internet Software Consortium:		http://www.isc.org
RSA Data Security:			http://www.rsa.com
Electronic Frontier Foundation:	        http://www.eff.org

Press Contacts:

	John Gilmore, Founding Board Member, EFF
	+1 415 221 6524, gnu@toad.com

	Shari Steele, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
	+1 301 375 8856, ssteele@eff.org