From: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 02:34:24 +0800
To: Lucky Green <pooh@efga.org>
Subject: Re: PGP compatibility
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971102005347.006b8be4@mail.atl.bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19971110125914.006e179c@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>> My copy of PGP 5.0 seems to be completely compatible with 2.6 versions.  This 
...
>Of course your copy of PGP 5.0 is compatible with prior versions. I know
>this, you know this, and the anonymous author claiming otherwise knows

Some of the free 5.0 versions can use RSA keys, and some can't.
Robert has the $5 RSA plugin, so his can.  The Eudora version can't,
and I think the MIT version can, or maybe it was the one on www.pgp.com.

By "can't", I mean that it not only won't let you generate RSA keys,
it also won't use existing RSA private keys from your old secring.pgp file;
I don't know if it can encrypt to other people's RSA public keys or not.

I found this very annoying a couple months ago when I was rebuilding my
PGP from backups after a disk crash :-)  The 5.0 version I'd been using
before the crash was happily using my RSA keys, and the brand new Eudora version
I used after the crash wouldn't take them, and wasn't very clear about why.
One of the local PGP folks told me there was a difference, and loading the right
version took care of the problem, and I don't remember encrypting to or
validating from any RSA keys in between.

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639