If you go to
http://www.gnu.org/prep/tasks_8.html#SEC8
And search for "Diffie-Hellman" to find out about the Gnu
Project's plan to develop an unencumbered equivalent of PGP
using unpatented algorithms such as Diffie-Hellman (the patent
of which recently expired), and triple-DES or Blowfish.
RSA and IDEA, used by PGP, are both patented, and the corporations
that manage the licensing of the patents are way more susceptible
to legislative pressure than the free software community. I have
been thinking about starting work on the task above if no one else
beats me to it (I have yet to contact FSF about it). In any case,
sooner or later there should be at least one completely unencumbered
secure cryptography package about as strong and easy to use as PGP.
The governments of this planet will have a very difficult time
containing something like that.
-- Eric Watt Forste ++ arkuat@pigdog.org ++ expectation foils perception -pcd