X-Message-Number: 528.1
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: PGP (Pretty Good Protection)
Date: 6 Nov 1991
LiberNet and Extropians Mailing List Info. on PGP (Pretty Good Protection)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!104!418!LIBERTY.Echo
Internet:
To:
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 91 18:15:51 PDT
From: ghsvax! (Hal Finney)
Message-Subject: Encryption and privacy
There was some discussion here recently about the value of using encryption
in sending messages. I thought the comments of Philip Zimmermann, the author
of the PGP encryption software, were very well expressed (material is
Copyright 1990 Philip Zimmermann, from PGPGUIDE.LST in the PGP.ZIP
distribution):
Why Do You Need PGP?
====================
It's personal. It's private. And it's no one's business but yours.
You may be planning a political campaign, discussing your taxes, or
having an illicit affair. Or you may be doing something that you
feel shouldn't be illegal, but is. Whatever it is, you don't want
your private electronic mail (E-mail) or confidential documents read
by anyone else. There's nothing wrong with asserting your privacy.
Privacy is as apple-pie as the Constitution.
Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is
unwarranted. If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to
hide, then why don't you always send your paper mail on postcards?
Why not submit to drug testing on demand? Why require a warrant for
police searches of your house? Are you trying to hide something?
You must be a subversive or a drug dealer if you hide your mail
inside envelopes. Or maybe a paranoid nut. Do law-abiding citizens
have any need to encrypt their E-mail?
What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use
postcards for their mail? If some brave soul tried to assert his
privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion.
Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding.
Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world. Because everyone
protects most of their mail with envelopes, no one draws suspicion by
asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers.
Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption
for all their E-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion
by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption. Think of it as a
form of solidarity.
If the Government wants to violate the privacy of ordinary citizens,
it has to expend a certain amount of expense and labor to intercept
and steam open and read paper mail, and listen to and possibly
transcribe spoken telephone conversation. This kind of labor-
intensive monitoring is not practical on a large scale. This is only
done in important cases when it seems worthwhile.
More and more of our private communications are going to be routed
through electronic channels. Electronic mail will gradually replace
conventional paper mail. E-mail messages are just too easy to
intercept and scan for interesting keywords. This can be done easily,
routinely, automatically, and undetectably on a grand scale.
International cablegrams are already scanned this way on a large
scale by the NSA.
We are moving toward a future when the nation will be crisscrossed
with high capacity fiber optic data networks linking together all our
increasingly ubiquitous personal computers. E-mail will be the norm
for everyone, not the novelty it is today. Perhaps the Government
will protect our E-mail with Government-designed encryption
algorithms. Probably most people will trust that. But perhaps some
people will prefer their own protective measures.
The 17 Apr 1991 New York Times reports on an unsettling US Senate
proposal that is part of a counterterrorism bill. If this nonbinding
resolution became real law, it would force manufacturers of secure
communications equipment to insert special "trap doors" in their
products, so that the Government can read anyone's encrypted messages.
It reads: "It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic
communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications
service equipment shall insure that communications systems permit the
Government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and
other communications when appropriately authorized by law."
If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy. Intelligence
agencies have access to good cryptographic technology. So do the big
arms and drug traffickers. So do defense contractors, oil companies,
and other corporate giants. But ordinary people and grassroots
political organizations mostly do not have access to affordable
"military grade" public-key cryptographic technology.
PGP enables people to take their privacy into their own hands.
There's a growing social need for it. That's why I wrote it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 91 22:14:49 PDT
From: (LIBERTY.Echo)
Message-Subject: Encryption of Files
From: Paul Robinson <>
Date: 26 Oct 91 19:04:56
There is a program available called PGP - which stands for Pretty Good
Protection - available to encrypt files and provide an encryption signature
and public key.
The executable version runs on MS-DOS but there is a source version of this
file available.
The two archives are PGP10.ZIP for executable only, PGP10S.ZIP for source (in
C with assembler) only. They should be downloadable from this BBS or from
several others including one I use, +1 703 841 1246.
this BBS is +1 301 656 4714.
If you are worried about the possibility that really good encryption will be
unavailable in the future, get a copy of these files.
For those who do not wish to spend money dialing long distance, I'll make a
copy on either 5 1/4" MSDOS 360K or 3 1/2" MSDOS 720K disk, for the
outrageously expensive sum of US$3.00, as essentially the cost of reproducing
the files.
The PGP10.ZIP is about 71K, PGP10S.ZIP is about 260K. So you can know how
long it will take to download them if you want them that way.
Paul Robinson
Tansin A. Darcos & Company
P O Box 70970
Washington, DC 20024-0970
--- Opus-CBCS 1.73a
* Origin: Imad-ad-Dean (1:109/434.0)
-----
Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=528.1