(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups: sci.crypt, alt.security.pgp) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- New Software being used to distribute PGP via the World Wide Web from MIT. Since last night (Saturday) we have been running new Web Server software at http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html (the MIT PGP Homepage). This software is specially coded to deal with the complications of running an export controlled Web distribution site. The primary visible (to you) feature of this new software is that the bureaucracy necessary to get into the distribution site has been automated. When our old software believed your host was not in the U.S. or Canada because it was unable to "reverse resolve" your host's name you were out of luck. With this new software you will be given a chance to enter your e-mail address. We will then verify your e-mail address in real time and send you a special password which will allow you access to the distribution site, even if we couldn't let you in previously (this whole process happens automatically and doesn't wait for me to manually do anything!!!). IF YOU PREVIOUSLY SENT ME MAIL ASKING THAT I ADD YOUR SITE (particularly if I haven't responded, which is likely given the large number of requests I receive a day) YOU SHOULD TRY OUR WEB SITE NOW. Note: This software is still a little green and may be down from time to time while I install new versions (or if it crashes hard while I am sleeping or in meetings). There are known problems mostly dealing with older browsers which do "interesting" things. If you cannot get past the PGP access form page, keep trying (after a day or so). I will be monitoring the debugging logs and fixing things as I notice problems. AOL users cannot yet get through (I am working on this tonight, but I don't know if I'll figure out what is going on before I have to call it a night). Please do *not* send me e-mail yet reporting problems (the debugging logs will tell me a lot) unless you believe the problem you are seeing is particularly "interesting." Once the code is more stable I will send another message indicating that I think things are stable, *then* you can complain to me when things don't work because I will be removing the debugging code after it is stable. Also Note: We are only using this new software for PGP at the moment *NOT* PGPfone. However our plan is to convert the PGPfone distribution site to this new software as well. Btw. Phil informs me that the next PGPfone beta test, for both the Macintosh and (finally) Windows '95 should be ready any day. Some of you have heard this story before... but maybe this time... When this next release of PGPfone is made available, the new distribution system will be in effect. Technical details (for those who care, the rest of you can skip this): The new distribution system is a stand alone program which you talk to after "posting" the PGP access form. This program is a complete Web server in and of itself. It runs in one process, multiplexing up to 50 connections simultaneously (this makes it fast because it doesn't have to fork processes, something UNIX isn't particularly good about). It is written in C++ (compiled under G++) and is currently hosted on a SGI Indy workstations (175Mhz processor with 100 Megabytes of RAM), though it may move to a different server soon. And yes, I will be making it publicly available after I have it better debugged. -Jeff -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMUyiJMUtR20Nv5BtAQGPrAQAq2z7Nz3/XlWqjcRwSq8aFRiiqLI04oEp w1T9OZk3Ie7cTgfebyA69yGLNXPo4oFfea9Y6fw56eOMP2F/+gaCEajXhCwrMIjQ zSp8jF0QzTihZv0QYod2t4wIlOw7jNiAUIRdIBELI2OS12J0TRwOxb4eogHvI6Jh Q08S107/X1c= =GaW0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----