OpenPGP vs. GnuPG (was: GPG and PGP Compatibility)

[Michael Kallas]

Hi,

Conan Purves schrieb:
> Theoretically speaking, what is the difference between PGP and GPG?  Is
> it just a different management tool handling the same encryption
> algorithm or is there some further translation between the two?  

They are two tools sharing the principles of public-key encryption.
PGP was implemented first. Sadly being non-free, many people considered
it not usable for security tasks.
Thus, a Free Software implementation was started, that's GnuPG.
Further, a standard [1] was drafted so other tools could be created
which share the same principles. Or maybe this is nonsense and someone
can correct me. ;)

> Why does my Enigmail menu on Thunderbird say OpenPGP, but it is using the
> GnuGPG engine?

Should be answered above. :)

[1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2440.txt

Best wishes
Michael
-- 
Nobody can save your freedom but YOU -
become a fellow of the FSF Europe! http://www.fsfe.org/en
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