Cypherpunks change bytes!

[greg@ideath.goldenbear.com (Greg Broiles)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


I ought to be studying, but goofing off is more fun. I generated a test
key with the binary distribution of PGP 2.3a for DOS. I then changed the
byte at offset 2F688 in PGP.EXE from 0x33 (ASCII "3") to 0x34 (ASCII "4"),
and the byte at offset 2F689 from 0x61 (ASCII "a") to 0x00 (null).

The patched PGP.EXE identifies itself as "Version 2.4" in ASCII armor blocks
and otherwise; the key generated with the "2.3a" version extracts as a "2.4"
key after the patch. ViaCrypt PGP 2.4 for DOS can successfully read files
encrypted with the patched PGP.EXE, and add keys generated under "2.3a" but
labelled as "2.4" keys. I haven't done a lot of testing, but spot checks
make it look like everything's fine. 

I don't see the point in forcing everyone to patch their binaries or
recompile from source - does anyone else? Bidzos & Co. are certainly smart
enough to anticipate this step. What's the catch?


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.3a

iQCVAgUBLclzd33YhjZY3fMNAQGiDwP9HjSYfNfn4q/9L/BOqXluH06015x3YmDM
gNPfg5T2lWcsYJyyx/tMnVWdtAnFENAFUB7zK5vNq+Y/tquKaE6kEuZeUzZz1o+k
sOofUAR1Y+sUii4Fu8R2J7scNCDL2pjl/hIqAAfT0voHiexxOTR9uxCDeiWxz9w0
xpyuvJBLQq8=
=G5Oq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----