How Do I Do This PGP/GPG Thing?

[Jerry Feldman]

On 01/17/2009 12:40 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:04:47 -0500,
>   "Michael H. Warfield" <mhw at WittsEnd.com> wrote:
>   
>> Eventually, even these were forced to be relaxed for open source
>> software to the point where they have almost no real impact.  If you
>>     
>
> I think again this was done to make a free speech argument challenging
> the regulations moot so that they could still harrass companies when needed.
>
> One other note is that the original version of PGP used the IDEA encryption
> algorithm. This algorithm is covered by a patent for a couple of years yet.
> So the supplied version of gpg in many distros is not going to be able to
> handle stuff ecnrypted with the original gpg and some old keys. This probably
> won't be a problem for you.
>
>   
To make a long story short, some of the technology behind public key 
encryption is based on a patent owned by MIT and leased to RSA. The 
technology was developed by Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard 
Adleman who were at MIT at the time although public key encryption was 
originally proposed at Stanford. There was a big battle waged between 
RSA and Phil Zimmerman, and during that time, MIT was able to open 
source some of the technology. I'm being very general, because that was 
the subject of last December's Boston Linux and Unix meeting which we 
hold at MIT each month.

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846


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