Slashdot Mirror


Symantec To Acquire PGP and GuardianEdge

An anonymous reader noticed the news that Symantec has bought PGP and Guardian Edge for $370 million. They plan to standardize their encryption stuff on PGP keys.

9 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Open Source Alternative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    GPG is out there { http://www.gnupg.org/ } and we should use it.

    Privacy is a human right. Democracy can't work if it's citizens are controlled like slaves in the roman empire.

    Freedom is ours to take! Long live the RPG!

  2. Re:suckitude by Virak · · Score: 5, Informative

    GnuPG is what you're looking for.

  3. Re:suckitude by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not off-topic at all.

    Symantec will more than likely manage to screw this up just like they screw everything else up. Seriously, once upon a time their virus stuff was good. Now, you've gotta jump through hoops to remove it, their enterprise-level customer service is garbage, so I can only imagine how bad their home user support must be, and at some point their code base for the AV stuff grew so bloated you could run a Toyota (poorly) off it.

    What's wrong with pointing out that they're simply gonna screw it up?

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
  4. Re:Not bad by Seakip18 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I was specifically talking about PGP vs. GPG.

    --
    import system.cool.Sig;
  5. Encrypt file containers, partitions with TrueCrypt by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative

    TrueCrypt is reliable, reputable, fast, free, open source, and works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

    The TrueCrypt documentation is very good, but not perfect.

    TrueCrypt can encrypt a file that contains other files (a drive letter) or encrypt an entire partition, even the boot partition.

    No one I know has any connection with TrueCrypt. We are just happy users.

  6. Re:suckitude by Locklin · · Score: 4, Informative

    It *is* uniform if you pick one of the available GUI's and standardize on it.

    --
    "Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
  7. Re:suckitude by X0563511 · · Score: 2, Informative

    GnuPG (gpg) is the underlying tools and libraries. As locklin states parralel to me, there are plenty of GUIs out there.

    Have a look but realize that there are even more out there, these are just the hilights.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  8. Re:Encrypt file containers, partitions with TrueCr by X0563511 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Truecrypt is not the same thing as PGP/GPG. Truecrypt is great, mind you, but it is not public key cryptography and signing, with web-of-trust. It's just data encryption and hiding.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  9. Re:suckitude by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 2, Informative

    Short version - Phil Zimmerman wrote PGP. PGP incorporated the RSA algorithm. This got the feds after him for violation of the Arms Export Control Act, because strong crypto was considered munitions. Sanity prevailed after about three years and a bunch of lawyers' bills. A slightly longer version is here in the Wikipedia article on PGP.

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.