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If you read the "Snake Oil" section of the PGP User's Guide, then you know how I feel about amateur cryptographer's encryption algorithms that have not been subjected to extensive peer review.
Well, It is true that I am _not_ being paid for this software. It is my hobby. And I don't care how you feel about my hobby. Please feel free to make any constructive comments about the algorithm.
The time for constructive comments about a new algorithm such as yours is *before* you release code. IDEA and RSA were already well respected ciphers before PGP was released.
I believe that you may by misinformed. I hope that I have made my position clear. You relesased the pgp program under the "Copyleft" License. I have the right to change the software or use pieced of it. I am protected from you trying to deny me those rights.
You may be correct in that Phil Zimmermann has no legal recourse, but I counldn't say for sure. I am more concerned with the ethical issues. What have you called your new super-duper pgp? If you make it abundantly clear that it is *your* hack of pgp, and not supported in any way by RSA, MIT, or prz, I personally wouldn't have a problem with it. It is my feeling that cryptographic software is an entirely different beast from other software released under such free licenses. If I improve or port some one's mail reader for instance, out of *common courtesy*, the first thing I would do is contact the author to let him know. Any bugs in such a program would make themselves readily apparent and users would quickly learn whether or not my version was really an improvement. How is a user to know that his data has less of a chance of being compromised using super-kool-pgp than prz's own version? The people reading his compromised mail certainly aren't going to tell him that his cryptographic software has a bug in it. I think a lot of this issue has less to do with the law and more to do with courtesy to fellow software authors. - -- Baba baby mama shaggy papa baba bro baba rock a shaggy baba sister shag saggy hey doc baba baby shaggy hey baba can you dig it baba baba E7 E3 90 7E 16 2E F3 45 * 28 24 2E C6 03 02 37 5C Stuart Smith <stu@nemesis.wimsey.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLiU/DKi5iP4JtEWBAQGpYAP+MD+AcoHHcfpOA+SFzWmOCZ1U1KVXt1zP js1vq6v3tmbA5tXBJzHptnSDIIdPWwuiNL/4rgD8eXVVdaeCVloqz38U1Gk5KWnZ N4C8X2opaiOG6azU58upqzeEnmHJXvD2K0Mr3nZZMMhvu+ANdAxdVxSNuj5WaJoH dJq596n4gpk= =716m -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----