[13746] in Cypherpunks
pgp 2.6 stupidity
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Mon May 16 15:17:50 1994
Date: Mon, 16 May 94 15:10:23 EDT
From: perry@imsi.com (Perry E. Metzger)
To: jis@MIT.EDU
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com, prz@acm.org
Reply-To: perry@imsi.com
Personally, I find the PGP 2.6 announcement to be based on an
extremely flawed premise.
PGP 2.3a and earlier were not American software -- they were written
and produced overseas and were IMPORTED into the U.S.
They infringe on no patents or copyrights when used overseas.
Well, I have lots of correspondants overseas, using perfectly legal
software. They cannot legally use PGP 2.6 -- it isn't exportable.
Therefore, this idiocy will act to cut me off from my overseas
correspondants. I will not be able to use the current version of PGP
and still communicate with them. I will therefore be forced to use
older versions -- probably repeatedly patched versions of 2.5.
Perry
