PGP & GPG compatibility

[Keith Ray]

Quoting David Shaw <dshaw at jabberwocky.com>:

> I am very concerned with interoperability issues using GPG.  If
> someone is having a particular problem, I'd love to hear it so I can
> at least try to do something about it (I wrote the --pgp2 option as
> well).

How about encrypting and signing with GnuPG to a PGP 2 user?  According to the
GnuPG website, it takes FOUR steps to simply encrypt and sign a document to a
PGP 2.6 user.

In fact, the most common reason cited for staying with PGP 2 is for
compatibility reasons.  However, GnuPG has no way of knowing what version a
particular key corresponds to.  Recently, various GnuPG "front-ends" have begun
implementing multiple configurations to help solve this issue, but the user has
to manually select which configuration to use with a particular recipient. 
Trying to encrypt to multiple recipients is an exercise in futility.

  -- Keith

# gpg -e -s --rfc1991 --cipher-algo idea --digest-algo md5 -r test -o test.pgp
--compress-algo 1 test.txt
gpg: this cipher algorithm is deprecated; please use a more standard one!

# pgp test.pgp
Pretty Good Privacy(tm) 2.6.3ia - Public-key encryption for the masses.
(c) 1990-96 Philip Zimmermann, Phil's Pretty Good Software. 1996-03-04
International version - not for use in the USA. Does not use RSAREF.
Current time: 2002/01/22 04:39 GMT

File is encrypted.  Secret key is required to read it.
Key for user ID: Test RSA Key
384-bit key, key ID A00E6935, created 2002/01/22

Just a moment....
Error: Decrypted plaintext is corrupted.

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