How Do I Do This PGP/GPG Thing?

[Jerry Feldman]

On 01/19/2009 11:33 AM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> Jerry Feldman wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> AFAIK the patent expired last year...
>
Yes it did.

-- 
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


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 251 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/attachments/20090124/4789793b/attachment-0001.sig>