From: Shawn McMahon Area: Public Key Encryption To: John Stephenson 13 Nov 94 13:30:18 Subject: PGP versions UpdReq Despite the stern warnings of the tribal elders, John Stephenson said this to Shawn McMahon: JS> I'm curious about something.. I've heard that RSAREF is simply JS> another method of using RSA, but it's a slower alogrythm.. The word algorithm is your stumbling block; it has two meanings here. There's the mathmatical algortithm that defines RSA; then there's whatever code you end up with to implement it, which is also an algorithm. JS> It didn't kick in for a while but whoever said that is JS> wrong, or else RSAREF could decode, and encode to RSA -- JS> which of course is false. No, it's true, actually. JS> So, what truely IS the difference between RSA & RSAREF? I JS> know that RSAREF has been tested less throughly, but what JS> about the actual alog.? RSAREF is a specfic library of code to implement the RSA algorithm. Phil Zimmerman also wrote his own code to handle that. His code is faster. However, in order to license RSA from Public Key Partners, he has to use their code, the RSAREF library. Although it's slower, it's output is identical. Just like the output you'd get if you sat down with a calculator and did the RSA math by hand. Which would take a LONG time. :-) What all this means is this; the government doesn't want foreigners to have access to RSA. So, they require us US citizens to use the slowest widely-used implementation of RSA. Meanwhile, everybody else in the entire world uses faster implementations. In fact, according to Peter Gutmann, the fastest implementation of RSA he's seen was written in Moscow. :-) --- # Origin: Void Where Prohibited/2 (1:19/34) * Origin: PODNet <-> FidoNet EchoGate! (93:9600/0.0) SEEN-BY: 107/946 147/1077 152/53 153/9125 259/212 382/7 640/217 3611/19 SEEN-BY: 9600/0 9608/0 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694201 From: Shawn McMahon Area: Public Key Encryption To: Ian Lin 13 Nov 94 13:40:32 Subject: Pgp abroad UpdReq Despite the stern warnings of the tribal elders, Ian Lin said this to David Chessler: IL> too long to encrypt or decrypt. I would use PGP under that, IL> and any damn version (2.3a) I please. Ian, please post a copy of your key in PKEY_DROP, so that we can all show you the primary reason not to stick with that antiquated version of that program. --- # Origin: Void Where Prohibited/2 (1:19/34) * Origin: PODNet <-> FidoNet EchoGate! (93:9600/0.0) SEEN-BY: 107/946 147/1077 152/53 153/9125 259/212 382/7 640/217 3611/19 SEEN-BY: 9600/0 9608/0 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694201