From: rxt109@psu.edu (Bob Torres)
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 12:38:38 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: NSA CAN BREAK PGP ENCRYPTION
Message-ID: <199312022035.AA26183@genesis.ait.psu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


check out this load of bull that I pulled off of alt.privacy today. 
Reminds me of those chain letters....


>
>
>        A lot of people think that PGP encryption is unbreakable and that the
>NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12 cannot read their mail. This is wrong, and it can be a deadly
>mistake. In Idaho, a left-wing activist by the name of Craig Steingold was
>arrested  _one day_ before he and others wee to stage a protest at government
>buildings; the police had a copy of a message sent by Steingold to another
>activist, a message which had been encrypted with PGP and sent through E-mail.
>
>        Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to 
>allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, 
>Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he 
>would be set up for trafficking narcotics unless he complied. The Government 
>agency's demands were simple: He was to put a virtually undetectable 
>trapdoor, designed by the NSA, into all future releases of PGP, and to
>tell no-one.
>
>        After reading this, you may think of using an earlier version of 
>PGP. However, any version found on an FTP site or bulletin board has been 
>doctored. Only use copies acquired before 1992, and do NOT use a recent 
>compiler to compile them. Virtually ALL popular compilers have been 
>modified to insert the trapdoor (consisting of a few trivial changes) into 
>any version of PGP prior to 2.1. Members of the boards of Novell, Microsoft, 
>Borland, AT&T and other companies were persuaded into giving the order for the 
>modification (each ot these companies' boards contains at least one Trilateral
>Commission member or Bilderberg Committee attendant).
>
>        It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
>The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
>in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
>result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above 
>2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
>with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
>itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
>is older than from 1992.
>
>Distribute and reproduce this information freely. Do not alter it.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi.
>Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
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>Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.
>
>
      --**--**--  R X T 1 0 9 @ E M A I L . P S U . E D U  --**--**--
Bob Torres                      |  "I don't know what I'm writing about:
plato@phantom.com               |     I'm obscure even to myself."         
                               PGP PUB KEY AVAILABLE **        | -C.
Lispector, _The Stream of Life_