From: Richard Braakman <dark@wapit.com>
Subject: Kannel project hampered by RC5 patent
To: -email is unavailable-
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 22:39:03 +0200

I'm a developer for the Kannel project.  Kannel implements a large part
of the WAP specifications.  A very short summary of WAP is that it lets
you run a browser on a mobile phone, which then accesses services tailored
for mobile devices.  Kannel is a WAP gateway, which translates the
WAP protocols to Internet protocols.

One of the WAP specifications is for WTLS, Wireless Transport Layer
Security.  It establishes a secure session between the phone and the
WAP gateway, and is essential for the kinds of services that in
normal Web use would require SSL.

WTLS allows clients to support multiple ciphers, but the WAP Forum
has selected RC5 as the recommended block cipher for encryption.
In practice the resource constraints on a mobile device makes it
unlikely that manufacturers will support more than one block cipher.
(The Nokia 7110, which is the one I happen to have, is an example of
a phone that supports only RC5 encryption.)

Because of the patent restrictions on RC5, Kannel will not be able to
provide a useful free implementation of WTLS in countries where the
patent has force.  There's not much point in providing a WTLS server
that is not interoperable with the majority of the client devices.

Unfortunately I don't know the patent number for RC5.

For more information about Kannel, please contact -email is unavailable-
(private address) or -email is unavailable- (development mailing list).

Richard Braakman


References:

http://www.kannel.org/    More about the Kannel project
http://www.wapforum.org/  WAP specifications
http://flashcommerce.com/articles/00/05/09/214240240.html
                          Reports RC5 decision
  (As far as I can tell the actual text of the decision is not publically
   available.)