From: Edgar Swank <edgar@Garg.Campbell.CA.US>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 22:15:56 +0800
To: Cypherpunks          <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Zimmerman/ViaCrypt?
Message-ID: <0PggPD7w165w@Garg.Campbell.CA.US>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Bruce Baugh recently posted,

    *Has there been any news recently about what's going on with
    commercial versions of PGP?  I've been toying with the idea of
    buying the Windows version from ViaCrypt just to have a PGP that
    doesn't need to shell out to DOS each time it runs, but I'm
    curious as to where, if anywhere, things seem to be going.

First, unless there's been a new release, the so-called Windows
version of ViaCrypt is just a Windows shell that still creates a DOS
window to run PGP. It's a pretty good shell, and it's easy to install,
but that's about it.

There was a big discussion recently on alt.security.pgp about PRZ and
ViaCrypt.  Apparently Phil now wants to produce his own commercial
version of PGP and has "requested" ViaCrypt to sell back the
commercial rights under threat of a lawsuit if they don't.

Phil disagrees with ViaCrypts new "business" version of PGP which
apparently encrypts all messages with an employer-supplied public key
in addition to any specified by the employee.  ViaCrypt has their side
of the argument on their web page.

   http://www.viacrypt.com/

The basis of the possible lawsuit would be that ViaCrypt violated
their agreement not to put any "back door" into any product with the
PGP name. Whether the "business version feature" could be defined as a
"back door" would be the crux of the argument.

-- 
edgar@Garg.Campbell.CA.US (Edgar Swank)
The Land of Garg BBS -- +1 408 378-5108