[ale] gnupg signatures

[Greg Sabino Mullane]

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> I'd like to find out more. The FAQs I've found don't help much.

The legal situation is a mess, but has been getting much better 
over the last few years as patents have expired and restrictions 
have been loosened. A large part of the problem is that the 
United States has classified cryptography as "munitions" which 
has caused many problems over the years both inside and 
outside of the US. A good place to look for things PGP/GnuPG 
related is The International PGP Home Page:

http://www.pgpi.org

There are a lot of good links there under "FAQs" and 
"Documentation". Beware of anything written in this field 
written more than a year or so ago, as it will contain outdated 
information, especially with regards to the legal aspects of 
cryptography. (The basic mathematical concepts have not 
changed however.)

I would not recommend using PGPi; GnuPG is a much better choice:

http://www.gnupg.org

The latest version is 1.0.6. Don't worry about the restrictions: 
just download GnuPG from a non-US site (gnupg.org is one 
such) and you should be okay. Most countries have better policies 
than the US anyway; the only ones worse were China, Libya, and 
Iraq, if I recall correctly. :) 

Some good "Getting started with GnuPG" links:

http://www.gnupg.org/faq.html

http://www.dewinter.com/gnupg_howto/english/

This page has a nice breakdown of crypto laws per country:

http://cwis.kub.nl/~frw/people/koops/lawsurvy.htm

So in summary, go download GnuPG from gnupg.org and you won't 
have to worry about the legal restrictions. (exept when/if you 
go to another country, in which case see the above link)

Greg Sabino Mullane <greg at turnstep.com>
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200201241138

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Comment: http://www.turnstep.com/pgp.html

iQA/AwUBPFA43LybkGcUlkrIEQJOfACg6tnN/a8jkRw9ZcLXbrbJgM3KkykAn1Mf
sG6OUlgR4XPnI/YjylYJ+o6G
=/KMr
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