7.14.1. "Does PGP help or hurt public key methods in general and RSA
Data Security Inc. in particular?"
- The outcome is not final, but on balance I think the
position of RSADSI is helped by the publicity PGP has
generated. Users of PGP will "graduate" to fully-licensed
versions, in many cases. Corporations will then use
RSADSI's products.
+ Interestingly, PGP could do the "radical" things that
RSADSI was not prepared to do. (Uses familiar to
Cypherpunks.)
- bypassing export restrictions is an example of this
- incorporation into experimental digital cash systems
- Parasitism often increases the rate of evolution. Certainly
PGP has helped to light a fire under RSADSI.
7.14.2. Stealth PGP
- Xenon, Nik, S-Tools,
7.14.3. "Should we work on a more advanced version, a *Really Good
Privacy*?"
- easier said than done...strong committment of time
- not clear what is needed...
7.14.4. "Can changes and improvements be made to PGP?"
- I consider it one of the supreme ironies of our age that
Phil Zimmermann has denounced Tom Rollins for making
various changes to a version of PGP he makes available.
+ Issues:
- Phil's reputation, and that of PGP
- intellectual property
- GNU Public license
- the mere name of PGP
- Consider that RSA said much the same thing, that PGP
would degrade the reputation of public key (esp. as Phil
was an "amateur," the same exact phrasing PRZ uses to
criticize Tom Rollins!)
- I'm not taking a stand here....I don't know the details.
Just some irony.
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind