Full Text of Phoenix letter

[Black_David@emc.com]

To: IETF IP Storage Working Group
Subject: Phoenix Patents and RFC 2945 

February 6, 2002


Dear working group members,

Regarding the inquiry by working group co-chair David Black into the nature
of U.S. patent 6,226,383 and its relation to SRP and RFC 2945, this letter
presents a status update on Phoenix's plans to provide an appropriate
response for the working group.  This letter also presents a general summary
of our licensing practices and products in the field of password-based
cryptography, which I hope will assist you in the planning process.

Phoenix owns patent 6,226,383 which describes the SPEKE methods for
zero-knowledge password authentication.  An investigation into exactly how
this patent relates to RFC 2945 is now underway within the company.  While
providing guarantees and assurances for use of technology developed by other
organizations has not been a traditional priority for Phoenix, there is now
recognition of the need for this working group and others to have clarity in
this matter, and a position statement will be provided very soon.

Phoenix Technologies, in part through the acquisition of Integrity Sciences,
has developed the SPEKE family of zero-knowledge password methods, providing
both licenses and implementations.  These protocols have been cited and
studied in numerous research papers over the past several years.  In
particular, the BSPEKE protocol can provide a plug-and-play upgrade for SRP.
An Internet Draft discussing these issues is also being prepared.  These
methods are comparable to the best of any similar methods, and they are
easily shown to be unencumbered by the other patents in this field.

It would seem a shame for a new standards effort to avoid zero-knowledge
password techniques as a purely cost-savings measure, given the choices
available.  The need for convenient, strong, and inexpensive security
built-in to the infrastructure of Internet applications is as great today as
ever.  The SPEKE techniques represent a generational improvement in personal
authentication, providing strong security with minimal effort.  These
methods provide the best choices in this field, with the cleanest
implementations, optimal security, best alignment with standards, and
easiest license agreements for commercial deployment of zero-knowledge
password techniques.

A statement regarding licensing of the SPEKE patent in the context of the
IEEE 1363 standard is on file with the IEEE, and Phoenix is also committed
to providing an updated statement in this same time frame that conforms to
both IEEE and IETF policies assuring reasonable and non-discriminatory
terms.  But more importantly, as a leading provider to the PC industry,
Phoenix will stand behind its technology.  Phoenix has a 20-year history of
broadly licensing products to this industry, and has helped to pioneer many
widely used standards and technologies that are built-in to the systems that
we all take for granted.  Our history of cooperation with many of the
leading companies in the industry makes Phoenix naturally suited to gently
encouraging the adoption of this new class of strong and convenient security
techniques.

Sincerely,


David Jablon
CTO, Phoenix Technologies