RFC2440

[ 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.

HTML conversion and comments on this are RFC are Copyright (c) 1998 Werner Koch, Remscheider Str. 22, 40215 Düsseldorf, Germany. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. See here for copyright information of the RFC itself.

Updated: 1999-09-30 wkoch