Brad Huntting recently posted: Perhaps it's time we polished the edges, added a few of the features that are lacking, and wrote up up an RFC for the PGP message format. Some features I'd like to see in PGP are: I've added my comments [with these full margins] as appropriate. The ability to send an encrypted message to multiple recipients without duplicating the entire message. The most logical way to do this would probably be to encrypt the random IDEA key once for each recipient. ??? This has been implemented in PGP since at least release 2.2. (Maybe 2.1, memory fails). Just specify multiple UserID fragments in the command line when encrypting. Note that if you don't specify a UserID in the command line, you -cannot- enter multiple ID's in the resulting prompt. This is in the -h help text: To encrypt a message for any number of multiple recipients: pgp -e textfile userid1 userid2 userid3 There needs to be a facility for having multiple signatures on a single document without making the signers sign each others signatures. Besides the obvious application of removing a signature from a document, this would also facilitate things like petitions where many people could asynchronously sign a single document, and latter assemble all the signatures together. This can be done via detached signature certificates, which can be gathered together and presented with the original document. To create a signature certificate that is detached from the document: pgp -sb textfile [-u your_userid] It should be possible (though certainly not mandatory) to hide the recipient's identity entirely. Not currently implemented, but being discussed. You can acheive much the same effect by using a another key-pair with a pseudonym in the UserID, to be distributed only through remailers or otherwise anonymously. The message format needs to allow for alternate forms of encryption (besides IDEA). Furthermore, the (shared key) algorithm used to encrypt a message should be hidden in the RSA encrypted part of the message along with the shared key. Ideally, a list of algorithms could be given which would allow the message to be optionally compressed before being encrypted, or encrypted two or more times with different algorithms. Not implemented, but has been mentioned. Triple-DES is one possible alternative. You can achieve multiple IDEA encryption by just using current PGP to encrypt twice (or more). Even if you encrypt to the same public key, the IDEA key used will be different. Compression can currently be turned off, if desired, via a CONFIG.TXT option, which can also be specified in the command line. Compression is also automatically turned off if the plaintext is recognized as the output of PKZIP or other popular compressors. If I'm confused and the PGP message format already supports some of these features, please correct me. Consider yourself corrected (:} -- edgar@spectrx.saigon.com (Edgar W. Swank) SPECTROX SYSTEMS +1.408.252.1005 Cupertino, Ca