DSA and patents

[Jon Callas]

At 11:23 AM -0800 12/9/97, Werner Koch said:

   Another issue with the OpenPGP draft is, that it requires DSA signatures
   and has no provisions for plain ElGamal signatures.  If it´s true, that
   DSA may infringe on some patents, can ElGamal signatures be made an option
   for OpenPGP and DSA be a SHOULD and not a MUST?

The current draft of OpenPGP allows for Elgamal signatures. It *is* true
that PGP 5.x does not implement them, but the standard allows them. If
there's anything in the draft that forbids them, let me know and I'll
correct it, as I consider that a bug in the spec.

	Jon



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Jon Callas                                         jon at pgp.com
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