Do a DejaNews search for the subject "Specification for Ron Rivests Cipher
No.2" (I didn't call it RC2 :-) posted to sci.crypt on 11 Feb 1996,
message-ID <4fk39f$f70(_at_)net(_dot_)auckland(_dot_)ac(_dot_)nz>. This has
also ended up on a
number of FTP sites, and I've seen it on at least one CDROM archive.
I assume that's enough to qualify it as "widely published".
No, I don't think so. Neither random FTP sites nor a CDROM archive give
me any confidence that the specification will be widely available for a
reasonable amount of time.
Keith