US grants export license for PGP

[Paul Bradley]

> > PGP crypto approved for export
> > By Tim Clark and Alex Lash
> > May 28, 1997, 7 p.m. PTThe U.S. government has granted an encryption 
> > export license to one of the biggest thorns in its side.
> > Pretty Good Privacy says it has won approval to export strong encryption 
> > technology overseas. The license allows PGP to export technology up to 
> > 128 bits; the government's regular licenses only allow up to 56 bits. To 
> > date, the government has only approved 128-bit encryption exports for 
> > technology that protects financial transactions but PGP technology can 
> > encrypt any kind of digital communication.

Does this agreement have a GAK clause???

Even if it does not, with the new structure of PGP they are not going to 
be releasing source code for future products so it is likely they are 
hoping the average paeon who won`t reverse engineer the executable won`t 
realise they have zeroed 72 bits of the key <g>, or are using a reduced 
round variant of some strong cipher, to give the impression of strength.

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul at fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul at crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul at cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"