-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----



              Pretty Good Privacy version 2.6.3i - READ ME FIRST
                                     .
                          Notes by Stale Schumacher
                                 1996/04/24


You are looking at the README file for PGP release 2.6.3i. PGP, short for
Pretty Good Privacy, is a public key encryption package; with it, you can
secure messages you transmit against unauthorized reading and digitally sign
them so that people receiving them can be sure they come from you.


ABOUT THIS VERSION

PGP 2.6.3i is not an official PGP version. It is based on the source code for
MIT PGP 2.6.2 (the latest official version of PGP) and has been modified for
international use. PGP 2.6.3i is probably illegal to use within the USA, but
is fine in almost every other country in the world. (However, it should be
possible to compile a version of PGP that is legal even inside the USA, see
below for details.) This file only explains what is special to version 2.6.3i.
For a more thorough installation and usage guide, refer to the file setup.doc
and the documentation for PGP 2.6.2, which is included unmodified in the doc/
subdirectory that is created when you unpack the distribution archive.


BACKGROUND

Until about two years ago, there were only two "real" PGP versions around:
PGP 2.3a which was the international freeware version, and 2.4 which was a
commercial version sold in USA only. However, this situation changed
dramatically in May 1994 when MIT released a special US freeware version of
PGP (2.5), in order to put an end to the legal problems surrounding PGP.
(PGP 2.3a was believed to be illegal in USA because of patent restrictions.)
The new version had a number of limitations to encourage Americans that were
using 2.3a to upgrade to the new version. However, these limitations resulted
in a well of new PGP versions, more or less professionally put together by
well-intending individuals who wanted a more flexible PGP than that offered
by MIT. Suddenly, we had ten different PGP versions, not two.

Even though PGP 2.5 and later releases from MIT introduced many bug-fixes and
improvements over 2.3a, many non-US users of PGP have been reluctant to
upgrade to the new versions because they feel that the PGP developers have
abandoned the international PGP community by adding a number of restrictions
that are only necessary within the USA. That is why I decided to make PGP
2.6.i (and later 2.6.2i and 2.6.3i): to put an end to all the PGP "hack
versions" that flourish, and by giving the non-US users of PGP a version that
is more "digestible" than those offered by MIT, and at the same time let them
benefit from all the improvements that the new versions have introduced over
PGP 2.3a. PGP 2.6.3i is a "real" 2.6 version, as it is based on the code tree
for PGP 2.6.2 and not 2.3a. This release fixes a number of bugs present in
PGP 2.6.2(i), and adds some new features (see below).


HOW WAS IT DONE?

PGP 2.6.3i was put together by taking all the source files from PGP 2.6.2i
(which was again based on 2.6.2), modifying them to correct a number of
annoying bugs and add some new features, and updating the accompanying text
and documentation files. All changes in the source that are not applicable
within the USA are enclosed in #ifdef's, thus enabling you to compile a PGP
version that is legal to use within the USA. This is accomplished by adding
the -DUSA option when building the program, and by linking it with the RSAREF
library (rsaglue2) rather than MPILIB (rsaglue1). For a detailed list of all
the changes between 2.6.2i and 2.6.3i, see the file pgp263i.dif that is
included with the source code distribution.


DISTRIBUTION

PGP 2.6.3i is distributed in the following files:

  pgp263i.zip      This is the MS-DOS executable release, which includes the
                   executable, support files, and basic documentation.

  pgp263ix.zip     This is a 32-bit MS-DOS compilation of PGP. If you have a
                   386 processor or better, this version will give you a
                   slightly better performance than the ordinary (16-bit)
                   MS-DOS version.

  pgp263i-os2.zip  This is the OS/2 executable with documentation and support
  (pgp263i2.zip)   files.

  pgp263is.zip     This is the source code release, which includes all the
                   source code needed to compile PGP and examples of usage.
                   It also contains all the files in pgp263i.zip except the
                   pgp.exe binary.

  pgp263is.tar.gz  This contains exactly the same files as pgp263is.zip,
                   except that they use Unix rather than MS-DOS line end
                   conventions.

  Binaries for other platforms (Amiga, Atari, Macintosh etc.) will probably
  be available soon after the official release.


DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PGP 2.6.3i AND 2.6.2

PGP 2.6.3i differs from MIT PGP 2.6.2 in the following ways:

  (1) It identifies itself as version 2.6.3i

      This is to clearly distinguish it from other PGP versions. This is
      important because users within the USA should not use PGP 2.6.3i, and
      also because script files, shells and other PGP add-ons may need to
      know exactly how your copy of PGP will behave under different
      circumstances. If you compile your copy of PGP using the -DUSA option,
      you will get a version called 2.6.3 instead.

  (2) It uses PRZ's MPILIB instead of RSAREF

      PGP 2.3a and earlier versions use a special library for all the RSA
      encryption/decryption routines, called MPILIB, and written by Philip R.
      Zimmermann (PRZ), the original author of PGP. However, starting with
      version 2.5, all official releases of PGP have been using the RSAREF
      library from RSADSI Inc, a US company that holds the patent on the RSA
      algorithm in the USA. This change was made in order to make PGP legal
      to use within the USA.

      Please observe that PGP 2.6.3i does NOT use RSAREF, but rather PRZ's
      original MPILIB library, which is functionally identical to RSAREF and
      slightly faster on most platforms. Because 2.6.3i uses MPILIB rather
      than RSAREF, this PGP version is also able to verify key signatures made
      with PGP 2.2 or earlier versions. This is not true for MIT PGP, because
      the RSAREF library only understands the new PKCS signature format
      introduced in PGP 2.3.

      The use of the MPILIB library is the main reason why PGP 2.6.3i is
      probably illegal to use within the USA. If you are in the USA, you
      should compile the source code using the -DUSA option and link it with
      the RSAREF library rather than MPILIB.

  (3) It lets you disable the "legal kludge"

      PGP 2.6.2 contains a "feature" that will cause it to generate keys and
      messages that are not readable by PGP 2.3a and earlier versions. This
      is the "legal kludge", and was introduced to encourage users in the USA
      to upgrade from PGP 2.3a.

      PGP 2.6.3i provides you with a way to disable the "legal kludge". This
      means that messages and keys generated with PGP 2.6.3i can be used and
      understood by all existing 2.x versions of PGP. To disable the legal
      kludge, uncomment the following line in your config.txt file so that it
      reads:

      legal_kludge = off

      This option may also be set on the command line: "pgp +le=off <command>".
      If you compile PGP using the -DUSA option, the legal kludge cannot be
      disabled.

  (4) It allows you to generate keys up to and including 2048 bits

      Because of a bug in PGP 2.6.2, this version would not let you generate
      keys bigger than 2047 bits on some platforms. This problem has been
      corrected in PGP 2.6.3i.

  (5) It contains a number of bug-fixes

      PGP 2.6.3i also fixes a number of other bugs found in PGP 2.6.2, most
      notably the signature bug for keys over 2034 bits, as reported by
      ViaCrypt. PGP 2.6.3i will also let you clearsign messages in 8-bit
      character sets, such as Russian, Japanese, Korean etc. Many other
      bugs have also been corrected, see pgp262i.dif and pgp263i.dif for
      details.

  (6) It contains a number of new features

      Version 2.6.3i adds some new functionality to PGP, while maintaining
      compatibility with older versions, e.g.:

      a) You may now specify additional user IDs from a separate file when
         encrypting a message to multiple recipients. This is particularly
         useful on MS-DOS systems, which impose an upper limit of 127
         characters on the command line. The command line syntax is:

         pgp -eat filename.txt user1 user2 -@moreusers.txt

         The file moreusers.txt is a normal text file with one key ID or user
         ID on each line.

      b) Userids can be automatically signed with your secret key when
         creating keys ('pgp -kg') or adding new userids ('pgp -ke'). This
         is controlled through the new AutoSign option in the configuration
         file.

      c) When extracting keys with the 'pgp -kxa' command, PGP 2.6.3i will
         label the ASCII output with a text similar to that of the 'pgp -kv'
         keyring listing.

      d) When clearsigning messages, PGP 2.6.3i will add a "Charset:" header
         to the signature block, explaining which character set was used for
         creating the signature. This will help the recipient of the message
         to select correct character conversion when verifying the signature.
         If he/she is using version 2.6.3i, PGP will automatically choose the
         correct character set, thereby eliminating a lot of "Bad signature"
         problems.

  (7) It can be compiled on many new platforms

      PGP 2.6.3i has been modified in order to let it compile "out of the box"
      for such platforms as Amiga, Atari, VMS, IBM mainframes running MVS and
      Windows NT/Windows 95. Furthermore, the Macintosh port of PGP is now
      integrated into the main source distribution. PGP 2.6.3i will also
      compile under MS-DOS using Borland C (MIT PGP 2.6.2 only supports
      Microsoft C).

  (8) It includes updated documentation and language files

      The language files for MIT PGP 2.6.2 had not been updated for a long
      time. This has been fixed in this version. PGP 2.6.3i comes with
      a combined translation file for German, French and Spanish. Additional
      language modules may be downloaded from:

        http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/modules.shtml
        ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/pgp/lang/

      All the other text and documentation files for PGP 2.6.3i have also
      been brought up to date, with the exception of PRZ's original PGP
      Users's Guide from PGP 2.6.2, which is included unmodified in the
      various distribution archives.

  (9) It includes additional PGP tools

      The PGP 2.6.3i source code distribution contains two new tools for use
      with PGP, called Stealth and PGPSort. Take a look in the contrib/
      subdirectory for details. The binary distributions now contain pre-
      compiled versions of PGPSort and MD5Sum.


DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PGP 2.6.3i and 2.6ui

A PGP version that has been very popular among non-US users of PGP is 2.6ui.
If you have been using PGP 2.6ui up to now, you should note that PGP 2.6.3i
differs from this version in the following ways:

  (1) It is a "real" 2.6 version

      PGP 2.6.3i is based on the source code for PGP 2.6.2, whereas PGP 2.6ui
      is based on the source code for 2.3a. This means that 2.6.3i contains a
      lot of bug-fixes that are not present in 2.6ui, and it also adds a
      number of new features that are lacking in 2.6ui.

  (2) It doesn't have the version_byte option

      PGP 2.6ui has an option to allow you to choose which message format to
      use when generating keys and messages. This is the version_byte option,
      and can be set both in the config.txt file and on the command line:

      version_byte = 2    (use backwards-compatible format, default)
      version_byte = 3    (use new 2.6 format)

      In PGP 2.6.3i, the same is accomplished using the legal_kludge flag:

      legal_kludge = off  (use backwards-compatible format)
      legal_kludge = on   (use new 2.6 format, default)

  (3) It doesn't have the armor_version option

      PGP 2.6ui has an option to let you "forge" the version number in the
      ASCII armored files produced by PGP. In PGP 2.6.3i, the armor_version
      option is NOT supported, as this is a feature that is heavily misused.
      If you must change the version number of your keys and messages, you can
      do so in the language.txt file instead.


LEGAL STUFF

PGP 2.6.3i is not approved by MIT or PRZ or NSA or the Pope or anyone else.
However, it should be possible to use it legally by anyone in the free world
(i.e. all countries except USA, France, Iraq and a few others). There are three
reasons why people may claim (incorrectly) that PGP 2.6.3i is illegal:

   (1) It is based on source code that was illegally exported from the USA

       The ITAR regulations classifies cryptography in the same category as
       munitions, and so it is very likely that exporting PGP from the USA
       is considered illegal by US authorities. In the case of PGP 2.6.3i,
       large portions of the code were written inside the USA, and later
       exported to the rest of the world. However, this is not a problem,
       because it is the _export_ that is illegal, not the _use_ of the
       program. Once the software is (illegally) exported, anyone may use it
       legally. (I didn't export it, and I strongly recommend that you won't
       do it either.) As long as you make sure that you get your copy of PGP
       2.6.3i from somewhere outside the USA, then you should be on the safe
       side.

   (2) It infringes the RSA patent

       This is not a problem either, because PGP 2.6.3i is not intended for use
       in the USA (which just happens to be the only country in the world where
       the RSA patent is valid, and still the validity of this patent is
       somewhat dubious). If you are inside the USA, you should compile the
       source using the -DUSA option and link it with the RSAREF library,
       which will give you a version that identifies itself as PGP 2.6.3. 

   (3) It violates the MIT license

       The second point in the MIT license for PGP 2.6.2 explicitly forbids
       anyone to remove the so-called "legal kludge". Still, this is exactly
       what PGP 2.6.3i does. However, it should be clear that this limitation
       only refers to the RSAREF versions of PGP. PGP 2.6.3i, on the other
       hand, does not use RSAREF, and so this point becomes irrelevant. If you
       still feel uncomfortable about this, take a look at the file
       przon26i.asc which is included in the distribution archive. This file
       contains a statement by Phil Zimmermann on PGP 2.6.i, the predecessor
       to PGP 2.6.3i.

To sum it all up: you may freely copy, distribute and use PGP 2.6.3i, as long
as you follow these simple rules:

  (1) Do not use it inside the USA
  (2) Do not export it from Canada or the USA (this includes downloading from
      a BBS, FTP or WWW site that is physically inside Canada or the USA)
  (3) Do not modify it and release it under the name "PGP"
  (4) Do not use it for commercial purposes unless you obtain an IDEA license
      (see below)
  (5) Do obey the local laws regarding cryptography in the country you are in,
      and respect the rules and guidelines from your SysOp, SysAdm or Internet
      provider


COMMERCIAL USE

PGP 2.6.3i may be freely used for non-commercial purposes only. If you want
to use PGP for commercial purposes, you need to buy a separate license for
the IDEA algorithm used in PGP. IDEA licenses can be purchased from Ascom
Systec AG in Switzerland. The fee is charged on a per-user basis as follows:

    1 -   50 users    15 US$ per copy
   51 -  100 users    10 US$ per copy
  101 -  250 users     8 US$ per copy
  251 -  500 users     7 US$ per copy
  501 - 1000 users     6 US$ per copy
      > 1000 users         on request 

For more information, contact:

  Ascom Systec AG
  IDEA Licensing
  Gewerbepark
  CH-5506 Maegenwil
  Switzerland

  Phone : +41 62 889 59 54
  Fax   : +41 62 889 59 54
  Email : idea@ascom.ch
  WWW   : http://www.ascom.ch/Web/systec/security/idea.htm


COMMENTS AND BUG REPORTS

PGP 2.6.3i was put together by Stale Schumacher <stale@hypnotech.com> with
the help of many individuals around the world (see the file pgp263i.dif for
a list of names). All questions regarding PGP 2.6.3i should be addressed to
pgp-bugs@ifi.uio.no. Please note that PRZ, MIT and the University of Oslo have
nothing to do with this release. Comments, bug reports and suggestions for
future releases are welcome. For a list of known bugs and how to correct them,
see: http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/bugs.shtml.


I WANT TO KNOW MORE!

If you want to find out more about PGP and encryption in general, there are a
number of resources available, both on paper and in electronic form. Here are
a few, to get you started:

WWW:

    The International PGP Home Page
      http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/
    Fran Litterio's PGP Page (from the Virtual Library)
      http://world.std.com/~franl/pgp/pgp.html
    The Official Bug List for MIT PGP 2.6.2
      http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/warlord/pgp-faq.html

FTP:

    ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/pgp/
    ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp/
    ftp://ftp.dsi.unimi.it/pub/security/crypt/PGP/

DOCs:

    http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/doc.shtml
    http://www.pegasus.esprit.ec.org/people/arne/pgp.html
    ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/pgp/doc/
    ftp://ftp.rhein.de/pub/peti/

FAQs:

    PGP 2.6.3i FAQ
      http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/FAQ.shtml
    PGP FAQs from alt.security.pgp
      http://www.prairienet.org/~jalicqui/pgpfaq.txt
      ftp://ftp.prairienet.org/pub/providers/pgp/pgpfaq.txt
    Where to Get the Latest PGP Program FAQ
      ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.answers/pgp-faq/where-is-PGP.Z
   
Newsgroups:

    alt.anonymous               discussion of anonymity and anon remailers
    alt.anonymous.messages      for anonymous encrypted message transfer
    alt.privacy.clipper         Clipper, Capstone, Skipjack, Key Escrow
    alt.security                general security discussions
    alt.security.pgp            discussion of PGP
    alt.security.ripem          discussion of RIPEM
    alt.security.keydist        key distribution via Usenet
    alt.society.civil-liberty   general civil liberties, including privacy
    comp.compression            discussion of compression algorithms
    comp.org.eff.news           news reports from EFF
    comp.org.eff.talk           discussion of EFF related issues
    comp.patents                discussion of S/W patents, including RSA
    comp.risks                  some mention of crypto and wiretapping
    comp.society.privacy        general privacy issues
    comp.security.announce      announcements of security holes
    misc.legal.computing        software patents, copyrights, computer laws
    sci.crypt                   methods of data encryption/decryption
    sci.math                    general math discussion
    talk.politics.crypto        general talk on crypto politics

Books:

    The Official PGP User's Guide
    by Philip R. Zimmermann
      MIT Press 1995 
      ISBN 0-262-74017-6
      216 pp. $14.95 

    PGP: Pretty Good Privacy
    by Simson Garfinkel
      O'Reilly & Associates 1994
      ISBN 1-56592-098-8
      430 pp. $24.95

    Protect Your Privacy: The PGP User's Guide
    by William Stallings
      Prentice Hall PTR 1995
      ISBN 0-13-185596-4
      302 pp. $19.95

    Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C
    2nd Edition
    by Bruce Schneier
      John Wiley & Sons 1996
      ISBN 0-471-11709-9

    E-Mail Security with PGP and PEM: How to Keep Your Electronic Mail Private
    by Bruce Schneier
      John Wiley & Sons 1995
      ISBN 0-471-05318-X 



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3ia
Charset: latin1

iQCVAgUBMX5mIrCfd7bM70R9AQHoJwQAyRKKfCXYzOiKXOCb1AVuun3J5pU1qYgG
mWwpKJFfZAjNY8XIeMi6/m3JCkA2kRtcazcAm0W97T+77IkFfeHT0D5r8edctB3u
+80Npt31xFMbV5WOGrFdK/46iJ2Foy6oLkCngl5yEbFe6DX4i7ZWAxIgvzZ4KLcW
z0Tn3TPEa+g=
=mvq4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
