[89748] in Cypherpunks
Re: PGP compatibility
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (stewarts@ix.netcom.com)
Tue Nov 11 13:56:06 1997
From: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 12:59:14 -0800
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>, "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>
Original-From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971102073541.23843A-100000@pakastelohi.cyphe
rpunks.to>
Reply-To: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
>> My copy of PGP 5.0 seems to be completely compatible with 2.6 versions. This
...
>Of course your copy of PGP 5.0 is compatible with prior versions. I know
>this, you know this, and the anonymous author claiming otherwise knows
Some of the free 5.0 versions can use RSA keys, and some can't.
Robert has the $5 RSA plugin, so his can. The Eudora version can't,
and I think the MIT version can, or maybe it was the one on www.pgp.com.
By "can't", I mean that it not only won't let you generate RSA keys,
it also won't use existing RSA private keys from your old secring.pgp file;
I don't know if it can encrypt to other people's RSA public keys or not.
I found this very annoying a couple months ago when I was rebuilding my
PGP from backups after a disk crash :-) The 5.0 version I'd been using
before the crash was happily using my RSA keys, and the brand new Eudora version
I used after the crash wouldn't take them, and wasn't very clear about why.
One of the local PGP folks told me there was a difference, and loading the right
version took care of the problem, and I don't remember encrypting to or
validating from any RSA keys in between.
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
