While working on another project, I noticed that Tandem (through four employees) recently received a patent on a variant of public key crypto which involves the use of three primes and the Chinese Remainder Theorem - the patent itself is available at <http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?pn=US05848159__>. Also, Silvo Micali recently received a patent for "traceable anonymous transaction" which appears to involve identity escrow by a third party (I haven't had time to dig into this further) - the patent is at <http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?pn=US05812670__>. I found those while looking through the patents which have issued which reference the original RSA public key patent (4,405,829) - it's pretty easy to construct a query to find all of those patents (currently 140) which might make interesting reading - see <http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/patlist?&uref_pno=US04405829__>. Also, someone on sci.crypt noted that a German Enigma machine (minus the codewheels) was recently sold via eBay; it sold for $7300. See <http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=64840419> including a picture and detailed description. The same seller (from northern NJ) also sold a Swiss copy of Enigma for $2500. The same buyer - who did not have any previous transactions listed - was the winning bidder for both machines. I don't get the impression the seller had any idea that hardware crypto is export controlled, as (s)he discussed making arrangements for foreign shipment. -- Greg Broiles [EMAIL PROTECTED]
