With the early May announcement of the availability of the new version of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) a free encryption program for email and other files, EFF has decided to provide PGP and other cryptographic material to users of the Internet. EFF applauds and congratulates the PGP development team, MIT (who initially made PGP 2.5 available), and RSA Data Security (patent holders of the RSA and RSAREF encryption code) for coming to an agreement and providing this new version of the most popular email encryption program in the world - a free version that is finally legal in the US. Previous versions of PGP arguably violated US patent law, with the exception of ViaCrypt's commercial PGP 2.4, but the new 2.5 is built upon the free RSAREF encryption functions, rather than the previous RSA functions which required a special licensing arrangement for use in applications like PGP. Despite the patent & licensing issues being resolved, PGP is still not legally exportable from the United States (except to Canada), due to ITAR export restrictions which categorize cryptographic materials as weapons of war. Thus, EFF can only make PGP and other crypto tools and source code available to US and Canadian nationals currently residing in the US or Canada and connecting to EFF's site from a US or Canadian site. PGP and similar material is available from EFF's ftp site in a hidden directory, and only to Americans and Canadians. Access to this directory can be obtained by reading and following the instructions in the README.Dist file at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Net_info/Tools/Crypto/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Net_info/Tools/Crypto gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/Net_info/Tools/Crypto http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_info/Tools/Crypto/ PGP can only be obtained from EFF via ftp currently. Gopher and WWW access to the material itself is not supported at this time. Only the DOS and Unix versions of PGP 2.5 have been released so far. The Unix version is in source code form, and so can be readily ported to VMS, NeXT and many other operating systems. A Macintosh version has yet to be released. If you would like to see US export restrictions on cryptography removed, please send a message supporting Rep. Cantwell's export reform act (bill HR3627) to cantwell@eff.org, ask your Representatives to co-sponsor this bill, and ask your Senators to co-sponsor Sen. Murray's companion bill (S1846) in the US Senate. Congress contact information is available from ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Issues/Activism/govt_contact.list -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994 -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994 -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994 -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994 -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994 -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994