From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204)
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 94 16:51:22 PST
To: jmueller@gac.edu
Subject: Re:  PGP (surprise, surprise..)
Message-ID: <9403070050.AA04935@anchor.ho.att.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Joel Mueller asks:
>      Could anyone tell me, is it true that PGP 2.3 was watered down to
> appease the RSA folks?  If so, would it be a better idea to use 2.2?  
> Thanks.

No, of course it wasn't.  There was some hoax article on the network
purporting that PGP was rigged, which didn't even have Phil's name right.

First of all, you can look at the code yourself, and see the differences
between 2.2 and 2.3 and successors - the discussion on the net centered
around bug fixes and getting things to work consistently across platforms.

Second (or zeroth), RSA has been annoyed at Phil for a while :-)
Among other things that have been done to deal with this,
Phil is no longer developing mainstream freeware PGP, though he has 
worked on licensed commercial versions like ViaCrypt.
The PGP official development is going on outside the US,
where it's not covered by the PKP/RSA patents and where there
isn't a problem exporting the code (US ITAR doesn't forbid importing
crypto software.)

So don't worry.  If you're concerned about not violating RSA's patent,
buy the VIaCrypt port for $100 (plus shipping and sales tax.)

		Bill
# Bill Stewart  AT&T Global Information Solutions, aka NCR Corp
# 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 Phone 1-510-484-6204 fax-6399
# email bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com billstewart@attmail.com
# ViaCrypt PGP Key IDs 384/C2AFCD 1024/9D6465