JSaraske's PGP Newsletter #9

Welcome to Newsletter #9, here at long last, after a much-too-long delay

Much has happened in the PGP world since last newsletter. Builds 03 and 04 of PGP 6.5.8ckt have been released by Imad Faiad, PGP 7.0.3 has been released by NAI, and Phil Zimmerman has resigned from NAI.

The official NAI release of PGP 7.0.3 added the now-official AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) 256-bit algorithm, which uses the Rijndael design. The Twofish algorithm, added in 7.0.0 when it was a contender for AES, remains. If that does not satisfy your hunger for algorithms, the latest CKT release, PGP 6.5.8ckt Build 04, includes all of these plus 128-bit AES and 128-bit Blowfish.

NAI has not (yet) released the source for PGP 7.0, so CKT builds are still based on the official 6.5.8 code, but that does not appear to present any problems with compatibility. Anything official PGP 7.0.3 can do, so can PGP 6.5.8ckt(04), and then some, with one minor exception -- PGP 7.0.3 adds a new RSA key type that supports all the extended attributes (picture, ADK's, etc). Of course, the CKT version still sports its trademark long key support and user definable version ID string. And it seems to be more reliable than the official version when generating keys near the upper size limits of the official version (see PGP Newsletter #8).

As for Phil Zimmerman's leaving NAI, he cites differences in his vision for the evolution of PGP and that of NAI. Zimmerman now intends to support the OpenPGP movement. For anyone unaware of OpenPGP, it includes PGP-compatible open-source crypto programs for multiple platforms.

Until next newsletter.....

-------------------- Jim Saraske --------------------

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