allen.schu...@gmail.com wrote: > What is the difference between DH/DSS and ElGamel/DSS? I was reading up > on S/MIME v3 and PGP/MIME differences when that came up.
I don't know how it's used in the S/MIME standard. However, the Elgamal encryption algorithm is often misnamed the Diffie-Hellman encryption algorithm. The DH key exchange algorithm (DHKEA) came first, way back in the '70s. Then an Egyptian-American named Taher Elgamal did some groundbreaking work in generalizing DHKEA, discovering the mathematical roots of why it worked as well as it does, and in the process developed a whole family of algorithms. This family is often called the "Elgamal family." He also developed the Elgamal encryption and signing algorithms. It is my understanding that the correct name for what OpenPGP uses is the Elgamal encryption algorithm. I don't know why PGP Corporation calls it Diffie-Hellman encryption; it seems to be an idiosyncratic usage. _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
