Re: NSA CAN BREAK PGP ENCRYPTION

check out this load of bull that I pulled off of alt.privacy today. 
Reminds me of those chain letters....


>
>
>        A lot of people think that PGP encryption is unbreakable and that the
>NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12 cannot read their mail. This is wrong, and it can be a deadly
>mistake. In Idaho, a left-wing activist by the name of Craig Steingold was
>arrested  _one day_ before he and others wee to stage a protest at government
>buildings; the police had a copy of a message sent by Steingold to another
>activist, a message which had been encrypted with PGP and sent through E-mail.
>
>        Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to 
>allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, 
>Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he 
>would be set up for trafficking narcotics unless he complied. The Government 
>agency's demands were simple: He was to put a virtually undetectable 
>trapdoor, designed by the NSA, into all future releases of PGP, and to
>tell no-one.
>
>        After reading this, you may think of using an earlier version of 
>PGP. However, any version found on an FTP site or bulletin board has been 
>doctored. Only use copies acquired before 1992, and do NOT use a recent 
>compiler to compile them. Virtually ALL popular compilers have been 
>modified to insert the trapdoor (consisting of a few trivial changes) into 
>any version of PGP prior to 2.1. Members of the boards of Novell, Microsoft, 
>Borland, AT&T and other companies were persuaded into giving the order for the 
>modification (each ot these companies' boards contains at least one Trilateral
>Commission member or Bilderberg Committee attendant).
>
>        It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
>The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
>in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
>result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above 
>2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
>with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
>itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
>is older than from 1992.
>
>Distribute and reproduce this information freely. Do not alter it.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>
      --**--**--  R X T 1 0 9 @ E M A I L . P S U . E D U  --**--**--
Bob Torres                      |  "I don't know what I'm writing about:
plato@phantom.com               |     I'm obscure even to myself."         
                               PGP PUB KEY AVAILABLE **        | -C.
Lispector, _The Stream of Life_

> >        Since version 2.1, PGP ("Pretty Good Privacy") has been rigged to 
> >allow the NSA to easily break encoded messages. Early in 1992, the author, 
> >Paul Zimmerman, was arrested by Government agents. He was told that he 

hmm,  amazing that "Paul" Zimmerman can so easily put a backdoor into a
program he no longer maintains :)

> >        After reading this, you may think of using an earlier version of 
> >PGP. However, any version found on an FTP site or bulletin board has been 
> >doctored. Only use copies acquired before 1992, and do NOT use a recent 

wow!  they went to every bbs and replaced the files!  I wonder what they
threatened all of those BBS sysops with? :)


> >compiler to compile them. Virtually ALL popular compilers have been 
> >modified to insert the trapdoor (consisting of a few trivial changes) into 

amazing!  As if compiler designers didnt have enough problems trying to
optimize their code and make their code optimize others!  Now they have
to put up with inserting backdoors for NSA!  Hmm,  I wonder what kind
of backdoors they are putting into unix these days?

> >        It took the agency more to modify GNU C, but eventually they did it.
> >The Free Software Foundation was threatened with "an IRS investigation",
> >in other words, with being forced out of business, unless they complied. The
> >result is that all versions of GCC on the FTP sites and all versions above 
> >2.2.3, contain code to modify PGP and insert the trapdoor. Recompiling GCC
> >with itself will not help; the code is inserted by the compiler into
> >itself. Recompiling with another compiler may help, as long as the compiler
> >is older than from 1992.

No wonder GCC is so slow!

>       --**--**--  R X T 1 0 9 @ E M A I L . P S U . E D U  --**--**--
> Bob Torres                      |  "I don't know what I'm writing about:
> plato@phantom.com               |     I'm obscure even to myself."         
>                                PGP PUB KEY AVAILABLE **        | -C.
> Lispector, _The Stream of Life_

Thanx for the cross-post Bob!  Great humor!  Anybody make sure that
no idiots over at alt.privacy believe this yet?

Thanx for the great software "Paul"!

uunet!psu.edu!rxt109 (Bob Torres) writes:

> check out this load of bull that I pulled off of alt.privacy today. 
> Reminds me of those chain letters....
> 
> >        A lot of people think that PGP encryption is unbreakable and that th
> >NSA/FBI/CIA/MJ12 cannot read their mail. This is wrong, and it can be a dead
> >mistake. In Idaho, a left-wing activist by the name of Craig Steingold was
> >arrested  _one day_ before he and others wee to stage a protest at governmen
> >buildings; the police had a copy of a message sent by Steingold to another
> >activist, a message which had been encrypted with PGP and sent through E-mai

Mr. Steingold is still being held; yet another modern American political 
prisoner. He's asked that all people, everywhere, supportive of freedom 
of speech and association please send him Christmas cards; he's hoping to 
get into the Guiness Book of World Records, and hence gain publicity 
which will make the evil sheriff set him free.

His address:

Craig Steingold
Inmate # 231768
c/o Washington County Jail
Coeur d'Alene, ID 97401





(Ok, ok, just kidding. Sorry. Couldn't help myself. Don't send cards. The 
bandwidth police can come get me now.)


--
Greg Broiles                       Lemon Detweiler Pledge?
greg@goldenbear.com                  You're soaking in it.