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Perhaps the buy-out of PGP is a good thing. Consider that now there is a clear and present motive for Cypherpunks to start writing the next wave of world-class crypto...it really is the *only* shure way that the process doesn't get subverted...we're no longer able to rely on a single commen source of crypto tools.
Perhaps we should hold a Requiem for PGP, or maybe an Irish wake instead. Let's take a look back at some of the good things PGP did toward furthering the use of crypto. Phil Zimmerman took public key cryptography and brought it to a fairly wide base of users: 4 million people, plus or minus a million or two. :-) That's rather substantial given that less than 100 million people are estimated to be on the Net right now. Think of how many more yet-to-be Net users will demand strong cryptography in their communications, be it personal, financial, legal, recreational...who knows what else? PGP also showed how both a freeware and paid-for version of encryption software can be marketed together. The paid-for version of PGP 5.0 allows users to generate the new El Gamal/DSS keys as well as the familiar RSA keys, while the freeware only allows for the former. The important lesson here, I think, is that the writers of "the next wave of world-class crypto" can make money from the paid-for versions with the extra bells and whistles that some of us like, but they are not stifling the expansion of their software's user base because they are offering a freeware version that implements the basic protocols for communicating with users of the paid-for version, and of course other freeware users. Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNIUHwxa1d3zm4nqOEQIG4wCgsDqyMsl64IsDwz814eL9SwdJmu0AoJ9M OaSWiBx2cZZqq97f0GZ1GuJR =Mqbu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----