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                Date: 2000-08-27
                 
                 
                PGP, Loecher & Vergaenglichkeit
                
                 
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      Was Ralf Senderek da über die PGP Versionen an Declan  
[von Wired] schreibt, gibt denen recht, die es immer schon  
gesagt haben. Alles über PGP Version 2.6 ist potentialter  
des Teufels bzw. der NSA. 
 
 
postscrypt: Die ganz unten submissest angefügte URL, die  
auf einen Keyserver führt, könnte eventuell verraten, dass den  
hauptsächlichen q/depe/schen/diener gerade in der Nacht auf  
morgen Gedanken an die Vergänglichkeit der Dinge befallen.  
An diesem anno 96 generierten -key, der zuletzt nur noch  
Signaturzwecken diente, hängt ein historisch gewachsener  
Keyring anderer Public Keys, denen fortan nicht mehr zu  
trauen ist. 
 
post/post/skrypt: Es ist an der Zeit, neue Schlüssel zu  
generieren. 
 
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ralf@senderek.de> 
 
A note to the public. 
 
 
I have been warning repeatedly about using newer versions of  
PGP for over two years now. In a study I put on the net in  
August 1998 which is also present on the PGP-International  
website I expressed my valuation of the ADK-problem which  
came with the newer versions. May I cite one sentence from  
my earlier work: 
 
"I do not know which mechanism will prevent a user's public  
key to be linked with another faked message recovery key  
without the user's consent or knowledge." 
 
I expressed my fear that this can happen and hoped that  
there will be security-checking mechanisms to prevent this.  
But not knowing much about the details of signatures and  
packages in 1998 I finally started to put this to a test  
because in the meantime almost everyone got used to the  
new keys. Completing my study and making sure that  
everyone who repeats my tests will get the same results I  
presented my study to the public on Tuesday 22nd August  
2000 and informed persons working on computer security  
immediately. 
 
So I did not find a bug in the PGP-source code, that was  
Steve Early working with Ross Anderson after having studied  
my experimental research at Cambridge on Wednesday. I  
discovered that there simply is no checking done, not even  
the attempt to detect unauthorized manipulations of public  
keys. This is not a bug, this is a scandal, because NAI put  
ADKs into PGP without caring about simple manipulations.   
Obviously there has never been a well thought-out security  
strategy and most of the relevant information the public got  
from NAI concerning ADKs was completely untrue as my  
experiments reveal. 
 
No quick debugging will solve this situation and the damage  
being done to the reputation of PGP by everyone who  
supports Additional Decryption Keys. 
 
I am opposed to Additional Decryption Keys, as you know,  
but I do not want people to turn away from PGP. I would like  
to see people getting rid of the ADK-problem actively by  
checking the keys they use and avoiding the new signature  
type. 
 
"Use PGP-classic in a reliably secure environment." That  
would be my advice if I had 49 characters left on the telegram. 
 
 
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historischer Schlüssel 
https://keyserver.ad.or.at/cgi-bin/key/Search?keyid=AC922C4D
                   
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edited by Harkank 
published on: 2000-08-27 
comments to office@quintessenz.at
                   
                  
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