The need for FREE cryptography ...

There is still a void in the arena of free public encryption systems for
regular human beings.  It would be wonderful if somebody would put a
reasonably secure package (much like PGP) and copyleft the source.  PGP has
never been a very useful tool to me as a programmer because of its internal
structure.  What I'd need, if I wanted to integrate this technology into
new platforms such as voice communication or an encrypted file system, is a
library of tools for shuffling this data around and piping it through the
"magic" algorithms.

I wonder if somebody on this list could outline what efforts are being made
in this area.

Stratocaster
-- 
                                               Steve Davis (strat@cis.ksu.edu)
                                                       Kansas State University
"[Nuclear Weapons] can't help but have an effect on the population as a whole."
    -- Ronald Reagan

> What I'd need, if I wanted to integrate this technology into
> new platforms such as voice communication or an encrypted file system, is a
> library of tools for shuffling this data around and piping it through the
> "magic" algorithms.

Such an interface would be a useful addition to PGP, maybe a libpgp.a
approach with such magic routines.  This would definitely be useful for a
great many things.

> It would be wonderful if somebody would put a
> reasonably secure package (much like PGP) and copyleft the source.

You should try reading the source sometime.  Like the file pgp.c....

jim

Steve Davis Said:

> There is still a void in the arena of free public encryption systems for
> regular human beings.  It would be wonderful if somebody would put a
> reasonably secure package (much like PGP) and copyleft the source.  PGP has
> never been a very useful tool to me as a programmer because of its internal
> structure.  What I'd need, if I wanted to integrate this technology into
> new platforms such as voice communication or an encrypted file system, is a
> library of tools for shuffling this data around and piping it through the
> "magic" algorithms.

RSAREF is available, but you can't use it in commercial products.
Also, it doesn't have many 'toys', although I can't really figure out
what 'toys' are needed...

If you don't need public-key algorithms (doesn't PKP claim patent
rights on _all_ public key systems?), IDEA may be used for
non-commercial purposes; IDEA is also fairly fast.


---> Dob

-- 
Dan Odom
danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu -- Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS

PGP key by finger or request.