On Tuesday 25 December 2018 12:48:16 John Hasler wrote: > Gene writes: > > I haven't played with pgp since they jailed P.Z., and I've always > > looked at anything newer than 2.62 as possibly equipt with a back > > door of some sort, one of the unstated conditions for allowing his > > release. > > I'd like to see some evidence that Zimmermann was jailed. I was > paying attention to such things at the time and I recall no mention of > an arrest. There was a criminal investigation but no charges were > ever filed and eventually both the 6th and the 9th courts ruled that > cryptographic software source code is protected speech. > > In any case gpg is not pgp.
Go read the history of that again, John, if you can find it, old Amiga mailing list archives from the early '90's might be a good place to start. PGP was considered to be munitions, subject to ITAR which Phil was well aware of when he published it, the disks crossed our border to get to a locale where publishing it was legal. That intentional border crossing with the disks in his luggage was what he was prosecuted for, not the code itself. He spent 3 years in the federal pen before they decided the cat was well and truly out of the bag and his further incarceration served no further usefull punitive service. Not to mention that lots of Senators heard from lots of constituents about the asininity of the whole thing. My own then Senator Jay Rock., a good man I had the pleasure of meeting in person several times, (tv chief engineers get more than the average bears opportunities because we are the media that helps get the pols re-elected) all but the first time very cordial because the first time they were exploring ways to get the feds out of a ponzi scheme called social security, he got told in plain language that I had been forced to contribute to it against my will since the late 1940's, and if it wasn't there when I retired, well, I was a hunter, a good shot, and might just go hunting for whoever screwed me out of it. He also got msgs from me about Phil's incarceration. As for gpg not being pgp, you are likely correct, but what was gpg based on originally if not pgp? Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>