From: Steve Mynott <steve@tightrope.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 01:49:27 +0800
To: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Subject: Re: Crypto Kong penetration.
In-Reply-To: <199801142049.MAA02259@proxy4.ba.best.com>
Message-ID: <19980115173121.01572@tightrope.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Wed, Jan 14, 1998 at 12:49:52PM -0800, James A. Donald wrote:
>     -- 2
> Since release there have been a very large number of hits on
> the Kong documents, and mere 102 downloads of the program,
> and 74 downloads of the source code.
> 
> The large number of source code downloads indicates that I am
> only reaching the crypto techie audience, that for the most
> part is already able to use PGP, not the non tech audience
> that Crypto Kong was designed for.

Ummm why reinvent the PGP wheel in an exclusively Win32 form?  PGP (at
least 2.x) has undergone peer review and seems secure.  Is that true of
your system?

I don't wish to sound too negative and there are interesting features
(small EC keys for one and smaller signatures).

Another interesting and similar program is Pegwit which is portable code
and also has these advantages.

Pegwit
http://ds.dial.pipex.com/george.barwood/v8/pegwit.htm

But there is an intrastructure of PGP key servers and most people have
PGP keys, already.  Maybe we should be building on standards rather than
building new ones.

Of course PGP isn't GPLed but we will have g10 soon which will be
real freeware and developed outside the USA to avoid legal problems

ftp://ftp.guug.de/pub/gcrypt/g10-0.1.3.tar.gz 

Its *very* prebeta but maybe will become the cypherpunk program of
choice.

There is also a freeware SSH ("Psssst") planned I think by someone else.

-- 
Steve