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The German government sponsored GnuPG, an open-source version of PGP GnuPG press release

GnuPG is partly backed by the german government:

gnupg.de
gnupp.de

Looks like it's time to switch to GNU Privacy Guard [gnupg.org] if you haven't already. Does anyone know if it will be immune to this attack?

It might be worth noting that GnuPG is also being developed with funding from the German government. Even if NAI were to try and block GnuPG with such a DMCA claim, I suspect it would be entirely futile and wouldn't even cause a hiccup in GnuPG distribution and development.

False statement. In the majority of cases where "socialism" was implemented, the country had just come out of a major war. What exactly was the fat Lenin's, or the Communist East Europeans lived off of? Or China, which had been ravaged by the Japanese and a two civil wars in a row?

Time for some history:

Soviet Famine and Chinese Famine

Yes, there was war on those countries, but agricultural traditions--the fat of the land--survived intact. Then they were destroyed by the Socialists/Communists whatever you want to call them. Very idealistic people can go tragicly wrong.

Also, I said GPL software was inferior, not free software (*BSD vs. Linux).

Re-read my statement.

When GPL software dominates a market, we are left with low-quality free packages on one end and expensive "industry standard" or "specialized" software on the other.

There is nothing there that says proprietary is always better or that free software is inferior. I said that when a particular class of free software license dominates, the proprietary packages in that market become fewer and more expensive.

I have to give you some credit though--many of my statements are not backed up, and I can't cite references. Unfortunately, I don't get payed to research these things. I'm an amateur pundit, but if someone wanted to pay me to work at a think tank, I think I'd enjoy it.

I also have to give you credit for not forming your argument based on your desire to noun a verb. Why do so many Free Software advocates center their arguments around trying to change the language? Perhaps it's just a bad habit they picked up from RMS and the PC speech movement.

As for my statements about the government stepping in to fund a GPL project, it's not fortune telling: it's history. Of course that's just one example. The "sneaky funding" through grants and diverted effort on the part of government workers (which is illegal since works created by US gov. workers in the course of their daily business are supposed to be Public Domain) is a much bigger problem right now. I have little doubt we will hear even more of this in the future.

Exploring the rest of my statements with an open mind is left as an exercise for the reader.

That's enough for me tonight folks. Peace.

It's true that currently GPG's user interface is terrible for beginning users if they have to use it directly. So, clearly, you want to use programs that embed GPG (like Evolution). Also, note that the German government is funding further development of GPG. They specifically say that their funding will be used to make GPG more usable by less experienced users, including porting the software to other operating systems, developing graphical user interfaces (GUI) and writing a handbook.

Thus, this sounds like a short-term problem at worst.

then its good enough for you.

See the press release.
There's even a section titled 'Why not use PGP?'

the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology help fund the development of GnuPG.
Check out the press release.

Living in this country that "supports open source" I am rather sceptically about the whole issue.

Well, you should know then that the German federal government has already sponsored the development of one widely-used Open Source project: GnuPG.

Details are available in English und auf Deutsch.

This is for real. The German government has realised that it has no confidence that its internal communications are secure and it cannot have that confidence if the communications infrastructure is run by Microsoft software - because they have no way of telling if there are or are not US government-controlled backdoors in Microsoft software. They also cannot be sure that the encryption systems built-in to Microsoft OSes and applications do not have unintentional subtle flaws that make them much easier to crack.

With all the (understandable) paranoia over the Echelon system, it is easy to see why they want a solid encryption solution that is entirely under their control.

It has nothing to do with price or better license conditions from Microsoft. It is about having an encryption system that is widely-used, rock-solid and verifiably free from backdoors.

Even if Microsoft offered the German government a source license, how can they be sure that the released version of Windows and the source code that they are offered are equivalent? Quite apart from anything else, there are significant chunks of Windows that Microsoft do not own the rights to, and thus cannot provide under a source license.

So, let me repeat again: this is not about Linux vs Windows. It is about having a solid, secure, verifiable communications channel that the German government can have confidence in - confidence that they cannot have with Microsoft software.

Living in this country that "supports open source" I am rather sceptically about the whole issue.

Well, you should know then that the German federal government has already sponsored the development of one widely-used Open Source project: GnuPG.

Details are available in English und auf Deutsch.

This is for real. The German government has realised that it has no confidence that its internal communications are secure and it cannot have that confidence if the communications infrastructure is run by Microsoft software - because they have no way of telling if there are or are not US government-controlled backdoors in Microsoft software. They also cannot be sure that the encryption systems built-in to Microsoft OSes and applications do not have unintentional subtle flaws that make them much easier to crack.

With all the (understandable) paranoia over the Echelon system, it is easy to see why they want a solid encryption solution that is entirely under their control.

It has nothing to do with price or better license conditions from Microsoft. It is about having an encryption system that is widely-used, rock-solid and verifiably free from backdoors.

Even if Microsoft offered the German government a source license, how can they be sure that the released version of Windows and the source code that they are offered are equivalent? Quite apart from anything else, there are significant chunks of Windows that Microsoft do not own the rights to, and thus cannot provide under a source license.

So, let me repeat again: this is not about Linux vs Windows. It is about having a solid, secure, verifiable communications channel that the German government can have confidence in - confidence that they cannot have with Microsoft software.

Oh.. not that long ago.. german government, for one, is sponsoring GnuPG. Here's the press release.

//rdj

This will be a good thing! c't already anounced to put an article on it in their next issue(I think - monday?). And others will follow. But not to forget: the German government is already sponsoring open source projects like the GNU Privacy Guard.