Pgp cracked? (yet again!)

[Steve Mynott]

On Mon, Aug 03, 1998 at 04:40:40PM +0100, Mark M Mclaughlin wrote:
> 
> Having watched a rather bland but vaguely interesting item on the local
> news about password recovery by Buchanan International Limited. I had a
> quick look at their web page [ http://www.buchanansoft.co.uk/index.htm ] to
> find that they claim to access, amongst others, PGP passwords. 
> 
> Anybody know anything about them, or is it snake oil season again?

>From their website:-

"How do you actually recover the passwords ?
The technical aspects of password recovery are patented by Buchanan
International and are therefore confidential. The process will not harm
any existing data."

I thought that patents are open for anyone to examine rather than
confidential?

They seem to be a reseller for http://www.accessdata.com/ and my guess
is Buchanan are just using the software they supply... although how this
Utah based company has exported their products from the USA is 
unclear.

Accessdata don't make any claims of PGP cracking and their pages include
examples of search engine spam attempts (white text on white background).

-- 
pub  1024/D9C69DF9 1997/10/14 Steve Mynott <steve@tightrope.demon.co.uk>