PGP & GPG compatibility

[David Shaw]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 09:42:32AM +0100, Axel H Horns wrote:
> On 3 Jan 2070, at 9:41, Nicholas Brawn wrote:
> 
> > What's the state of the game with PGP and GPG compatibility?
> 
> Interesting question.
> 
> I'm using PGP 6.5.8 for my professional confidential e-mails and 
> sometimes I get complaints from GnuPG users saying they can't use my 
> Pubkey. 
> 
> Currently I'm preparing an article on Internet security issues 
> related to the businesses of attorneys-at-law and patent attorneys. 
> In this context, it is already a hard job to promote usage of e-mail 
> encryption, and such incompatibilities between various versions of 
> PGP and GnuPG marke it even harder.  

I recently spent a good bit of time working out various compatibility
issues between GnuPG and different versions of PGP.  In the process, I
added a --pgp2 flag to the new (not yet released) GnuPG which sets up
the various options for a PGP 2.x message, and also prints a warning
if the user does something that would render the message not PGP 2.x
compatible.

I've gotten some interest in a --pgp6 flag, but there is less of a
need for this as the default options in GnuPG now do the right thing
for PGP 6/7 in nearly all circumstances within the constrains of the
RFC.  Plus, a --pgp6 would then imply a --pgp7 followed by a --pgp8
someday and it's a path I'm reluctant to head down. :)

David

-- 
   David Shaw  |  dshaw at jabberwocky.com  |  WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
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   "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
      We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson



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