PGP, security, Applied Crypto, etc.

[Mike Ingle <MIKEINGLE@delphi.com>]

Anon asked about changing PGP userids: pgp -ke

Applied Crypto: John Wiley & Sons Inc. 
          ISBN: 0-471-59756-2
Bookstores have no trouble looking it up from the title.

About PGP security: is PGP safe with 17 used as the public exponent?
Someone pointed out that
pgp -kg 1024 17
will create a 1024-bit modulus and a 17-bit e, so you can create a larger
e if you want to. I tried it and it's no slower. There is a compile-time
constant which could make this a default - should it be increased?

--- Mike

From USA Weekend:

"Nicole Richardson, 20, of Mobile, Ala., is serving a 10-year mandatory
sentence without parole for her first offense. Her crime? As a high-school
senior, she fell in love with a small-time drug dealer. A police informant
called to ask where he could find the boyfriend to finalize an LSD sale.
She told him and was arrested for conspiracy to distribute LSD. Because she
had no information to trade for a lesser sentence, she was put away for
a decade. Her boyfriend, who did have information, got five years."

Now doesn't that make you proud to be an American?