If you mean that they are NSA-proof, or that only brute force attacks would affect decryption, I would suggest that we know no such thing, and it is extremely unlikely that we ever will. The NSA has _astounding_ resources, unequalled by anything in the private sector, dedicated to no other purpose than compromising world-class cyphers. Their successes are not public knowledge, to say the least. No one here should blithely dismiss claims of PGP weaknesses when the opposition has literally billions of dollars earmarked to find such flaws.
It bears noting that the concealment of major successes in decryption are every bit as important as the decryption itself, a fact often overlooked.
I would like to see "Paquin's" case against PGP as well as a competent analysis of his claims. Unfortunately, I cannot produce either.
I'm rather surprised that the most significant piece of evidence in favor of the "NSA has cracked PGP" theory is that no one's put a bullet through Phil Zimmerman's head. Not to be macabre or anything, but if PGP was a real threat, don't you think that the NSA would act rather quickly to suppress it if they couldn't read stuff encrypted with it? And if you think that they don't monitor stuff coming in and going out via ftp to various parts of the world, I think you're being naive. If you think that they wouldn't act quickly, with violence if need be, to protect "national security", you're being even more naive. The umbrella of "national security" can (and has) encompass a wide variety of sins, excesses, oversights, etc. Hell, the NSA probably enjoys every time someone writes about how "stupid" the NSA really is - after all, it might convince someone to let down their guard. I think that, personally, the public-key stuff's gotta have some sort of a hole in it that nobody's thought of yet outside of spook central. -- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@apple.com 510/659-9560 anon-0001@khijol.uucp If you want magic, let go of your armor. Magic is so much stronger than steel! -- Richard Bach, "The Bridge Across Forever"