Re: PGP 2.5 Beta Release Over, PGP 2.6 to be released next week

[Alan Barrett <barrett@daisy.ee.und.ac.za>]

> In order  to   fully protect  RSADSI's intellectual  property  rights in
> public-key technology, PGP 2.6 will be designed so  that the messages it
> creates after September 1,  1994 will be  unreadable by earlier versions
> of PGP that infringe patents licensed exclusively to Public Key Partners
> by MIT and Stanford University. PGP 2.6 will continue to be able to read
> messages generated by those earlier versions.

Are we ever going to be told the details of the deals previously alluded
to regarding keyservers and PGP 2.5 (and now presumably also PGP 2.6)?
I grow more and more curious.

If users inside the USA take to using PGP 2.6 then users outside the
USA will, by fair means or foul, have to obtain PGP 2.6 (or at least
enough technical data to enable them to independently implement the
relevant algorithms).  Failing that, they will have to live with the
inability to read messages from PGP 2.6 users inside the USA.  Sigh.  I
wonder whether anybody is deliberately fostering a split between USA and
non-USA users of PGP.

--apb (Alan Barrett)