[313] in Best-of-Security
BoS: PGP 5.0 exported via print media
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Smart List user)
Sat Aug 16 23:16:00 1997
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Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 10:31:11 +1000
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Taken from The Afternoon Line August 13, 1997 (http://netlynews.com):
In a development that is probably sending Louis Freeh into coniptions and
may represent a fatal blow to the administration's efforts to control
encryption exports, the source code for Pretty Good Privacy's PGP 5.0
encryption program was posted Monday on a web site at the University of
Oslo.
So how did it get there, what with prohibitions on the export of 128-bit
encryption encryption software? Right out the front door, that's how -- in
the form of a 6,000-page book (remember them?), a format that is not
covered by the law.
A group of enterprising hackers set about scanning all 6,000 pages of the
source code and then painstakingly double-checked for errors, a two-month
process whose final fruits were unveiled in Unix format Monday, with Mac
and Windows versions forthcoming.
PGP says it had nothing to do with the whole thing, but was happy to have
its product vetted free by a group of experts, whose trouble-shooting
showed that the code is secure and contains no back doors for government
visitors.
More info at http://www5.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/zdnn/0812/zdnn0006.html
