[ Contents ]
1. Introduction
This document provides information on the message-exchange packet
formats used by OpenPGP to provide encryption, decryption, signing,
and key management functions. It builds on the foundation provided in
RFC 1991 "PGP Message Exchange Formats."
1.1. Terms
* OpenPGP - This is a definition for security software that uses
PGP 5.x as a basis.
* PGP - Pretty Good Privacy. PGP is a family of software systems
developed by Philip R. Zimmermann from which OpenPGP is based.
* PGP 2.6.x - This version of PGP has many variants, hence the term
PGP 2.6.x. It used only RSA, MD5, and IDEA for its cryptographic
transforms. An informational RFC, RFC 1991, was written
describing this version of PGP.
* PGP 5.x - This version of PGP is formerly known as "PGP 3" in the
community and also in the predecessor of this document, RFC 1991.
It has new formats and corrects a number of problems in the PGP
2.6.x design. It is referred to here as PGP 5.x because that
software was the first release of the "PGP 3" code base.
"PGP", "Pretty Good", and "Pretty Good Privacy" are trademarks of
Network Associates, Inc. and are used with permission.
This document uses the terms "MUST", "SHOULD", and "MAY" as defined
in RFC 2119, along with the negated forms of those terms.
Updated: 1999-05-23 wkoch