Re: Gpg 1.4 Renato

"Robert J. Hansen via Gnupg-users" <[email protected]> Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:42:02 -0500
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.encryption.gpg.user
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
> When it comes to communication security software, there
> is a built-in shortcut: start not by thinking who the
> users are, but instead who their adversaries are.

Absolutely not. There exists no set of adversaries common to all users.

> Both authors of that paper - and the users facing such
> adversaries (let's call them "Southern intelligence agencies"
> to avoid bringing our possible geographical biases into
> applied cryptography discussion)

I'm trying to figure out whether you're making a very subtle joke, or 
trying to be enlightened. I'm going to assume it's a subtle joke, 
because it's actually given me a brief smile, so. Thank you. The week my 
country has been having, I needed that.

(For Europeans: historically, the "American South" has included the 
State of Maryland, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the District of 
Columbia. NSA is headquartered at Fort Meade in Maryland; CIA is 
headquartered in McLean, Virginia; and FBI is headquartered at the 
Hoover building in DC. All the major U.S. intelligence agencies are 
located in the American South, hence my scratching my head and wondering 
if RB was making a joke there.)

> I believe that fraction to be greater than you do, and, more
> importantly, I believe it is growing. But regardless of their
> numbers, your criticism would be valid if they were asking for
> *more*: i.e., features and code additional to what the product
> currently provides. But quite the opposite is the case: they
> are asking for *less*

That's not how software development works. This would be a major change 
to GnuPG. Someone has to do the work. Hence, 'more'.

GnuPG 1.4 is on life support, *at best*. That is not going to change.

> suggested decades ago. And not using their elaborate Nabucodonosor,
> but a perfectly adequate (for their purpose) substitute: an
> Asus Eee PC pulled out of the electronic recycle bin.

Get a YubiKey. Congratulations, your crypto operations are now done in 
specialized hardware and isolated from the network at large _and_ you 
get to continue using GnuPG 2.6. What's not to love?

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