Gpg and IDEA

[Alan]

> Has anybody added IDEA to the rpm installation of gpg?  I'm still fairly
> pgp ignorant and the gpg IDEA add-on mentions things that don't exist in
> my RH server.
>
> Of course, I am assuming that I need IDEA based on the error I am
> seeing:
>
> [user at myserver]# gpg --decrypt myfile.txt
> gpg: protection algorithm 1 (IDEA) is not supported
> gpg: the IDEA cipher plugin is not present
> gpg: please see http://www.gnupg.org/why-not-idea.html for more
> information
> gpg: encrypted with 1024-bit RSA key, ID C0A298D3, created 2004-07-13
>       "one_of_my_keys"
> gpg: public key decryption failed: unknown cipher algorithm
> gpg: decryption failed: secret key not available
>
> If I am interpreting this incorrectly, I would like to know this as
> well.  Thanks.

You are right about missing the IDEA algorithm. The reason it is not
included is due to patent issues on IDEA.  According to Wikipedia the
patents will not expire until 2010-2011.

If you look on the Gnupg.org web page, there are instructions on how to
use IDEA as a plug-in.  This combined with the proper license is what you
want.  It is supposed to be fairly cheap to license IDEA for use in GPG. 
The links I have found point to a domain that does not work, however. 
Your luck may vary.