From: thug@phantom.com (Murdering Thug)
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 05:40:09 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: PGP: Improvements needed.
Message-ID: <m0ndMd8-000jreC@phantom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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I like PGP 2.2 a lot, but I think there is still much room for improvement.
I would like to throw the following suggestions on the table and open up
a discussion on them:

Here is what I think needs to be done:

- PGP needs the talked about "stealth" mode, wherein PGP encrypted files
  and documents contain no PGP header.  This would allow the embedding
  of PGP documents into files containing "white noise static" data,
  or into the LSBs of graphic and sound files.

- PGP needs to use a better compression algorithm.  From what I know,
  I believe PGP currently uses LZW (the same algorithm as in the Unix
  compress utility).  Anyone who has used Gnuzip (aka: gzip) knows that
  LZW typically compresses text files down to only 40-45% of their
  original size, while LZ77 (the algorithm in gzip) compresses text
  files down to 30% or less of their original size.  Clearly LZ77 not
  only saves space, but improves the entropy/randomness of the
  cyphertext, making PGP that much harder to crack.

- PGP needs a version or front end for the masses.  A point-and-click
  version or front end that runs under DOS.  I know there are really good
  front ends for pkzip for DOS, so how come someone doesn't write a front
  end for pgp2.2?  I would also suggest a Windows version, but that is
  not as important as having a really user friendly DOS version.

Hopefully, by PGP 2.5 or 3.0, these things will happen. But I'd like to
see them in 2.3 if possible.


Thug