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Annotation of pgp/doc/newfor23.doc, revision 1.1.1.2

1.1.1.2 ! root        1: News for PGP 2.3a
        !             2: 
        !             3: There was a bug in PGP's handling of clear-signed messages when lines
        !             4: were terminated with CR-LF pairs.  This has been revamped.  The previous
        !             5: limit on the length of lines in clear-signed messages has been eliminated.
        !             6: 
        !             7: The randseed.bin file was not closed when read, which resulted in it
        !             8: not being rewritten with a new value under some operating systems.
        !             9: Fixed.
        !            10: 
        !            11: Not all of the bytes in randseed.bin were being used, resulting in less
        !            12: randomness than desired when picking session keys.  While it did not make
        !            13: the compromise of session keys likely, it was undesirable and has been fixed.
        !            14: 
        !            15: PGP should now compile with less difficulty under OS/2.
        !            16: The Turbo C makefile was incorrect.  Fixed.
        !            17: The VMS build files were out of date.  Fixed.
        !            18: 
        !            19: PGP was not accepting octal escapes in the language.txt file that did not
        !            20: begin with \0.  \377 is now acceptable.
        !            21: The language.txt file got mangled in the middle somehow.  Fixed.
        !            22: 
        !            23: News for PGP 2.3
        !            24: 
        !            25: This PGP 2.3 release has several bug fixes over PGP 2.2, and a few
        !            26: new (although somewhat esoteric) features.  Among them are:
        !            27: 
        !            28: - An important bug: there was a bug with compression under MS-DOS which
        !            29:   caused the wrong piece of memory to be freed, with results that ranged
        !            30:   from none to undecodable messages to machine crashes.
        !            31: 
        !            32: - When adding keys, PGP now properly closes all the files it opens, so
        !            33:   you don't run out of file handles (MS-DOS) or file descriptors (UNIX).
        !            34: 
        !            35: - Sometimes PGP would not properly ask the user to set trust parameters
        !            36:   when keys were validated by adding new signatures.  This has been
        !            37:   fixed.
        !            38: 
        !            39: - When PGP messages are sent through a MIME mail system, a conflict
        !            40:   arises over the use of the '=' character.  PGP can now decode ASCII
        !            41:   armored messages which have been mangled by MIME's quoting mechanism.
        !            42: 
        !            43: - PGP previously kept track of one pass phrase (from the PGPPASS
        !            44:   environment variable, the file descriptor named by the PGPPASSFD
        !            45:   environment variable, a -z <password> option, or previous user
        !            46:   prompts), and tried it if it needed a subsequent pass phrase.  This
        !            47:   caused bugs if you attempted something that required two pass phrases,
        !            48:   such as pgp -sc (sign and conventionally encrypt).  PGP now keeps
        !            49:   track of any number of pass phrases, including multiple -z options,
        !            50:   and uses them as necessary.  Mostly, it just Does The Right Thing,
        !            51:   but if you care, the exact algorithm is as follows:
        !            52: 
        !            53:   - There is a pool of private-key pass phrases that starts out with the
        !            54:     contents of the PGPPASS environment variable (if any), and has every
        !            55:     pass phrase that is successfully used to unlock a private key added
        !            56:     to it.  When a private key needs unlocking, every pass phrase in the
        !            57:     pool is tried first.
        !            58:   - There is a list of PGP pass phrases available for use by whatever needs
        !            59:     one.  This is initialized with the -z command-line options and the
        !            60:     phrase read from the PGPPASSFD file descriptor.  When a pass phrase
        !            61:     is needed, it is taken from the front of that list.  When a pass
        !            62:     phrase is needed to unlock a secret key, every key on the list is tried,
        !            63:     and if it "fits" and unlocks the secret key, it is moved to the key
        !            64:     pass phrase pool.
        !            65:   - If the above fails to produce a pass phrase, the user is prompted to
        !            66:     supply one.
        !            67: 
        !            68:   Key generation (we need all the keystrokes we can get for random-number
        !            69:   accumulation) and key signing (to make sure the user really means to do
        !            70:   what they're doing) are exceptions; the user is always prompted for a
        !            71:   pass phrase under those circumstances.
        !            72: 
        !            73: New options:
        !            74: 
        !            75: +pkcs_compat=n
        !            76:        This defaults to 1, which tells PGP to generate encryption key
        !            77:        and signature blocks in a format derived from the PKCS standards.
        !            78:        This format is understood (but not generated) by PGP 2.2.  If set
        !            79:        to 0, the old format is generated, which may be needed for
        !            80:        portability to PGP versions before 2.2.  PGP is still incompatible
        !            81:        with the PKCS standards in many ways, but in future, values of 2
        !            82:        or higher may be used to produce formats which are more compatible.
        !            83: 
        !            84: Other notes:
        !            85: 
        !            86: The MS-DOS executable was compiled with Borland C++ version 3.0, optimized
        !            87: for maximum speed, except that jump optimisation was turned off.  If it
        !            88: is turned on, the Transform() function in md5.c is compiled incorrectly.
        !            89: The pgp.prj file that was used is included in the source distribution.
        !            90: 
        !            91: Thanks to everyone who worked on PGP and sent in bug reports.  Two who
        !            92: didn't make it into the manual are to Lindsay DuBois for a bit of last-
        !            93: minute translation, and Reptilian Research for support in developing PGP.
        !            94: 
        !            95: And thanks to the Cypherpunks who managed to get PGP so much attention
        !            96: in Wired magazine recently.
        !            97: 
        !            98: I hope you enjoy PGP!
        !            99: 
        !           100:        -Colin <[email protected]>

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