Symantec Buys PGP

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:07:27 GMT  <== Computers ==> 

Marketwire - Symantec has signed an agreement to purchase PGP for $300 million. Fortunately, I do almost all of my public key transformations with GnuPG. That will become 100% as soon as my current PGP version stops working. I'm not going to trust my bits to Norton Privacy. They'll have to rename it from PGP to RBP (Pretty Good to Really Bad). Or maybe Phil Zimmerman will keep them honest.

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Symantec & PGP

Submitted by Ken Hagler on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:52:59 GMT

Just out of curiosity, why do you think that? Do you have some information that Symantec intends to put a stop to releasing PGP source code for public review?

(Note: I'm a Symantec employee, and haven't heard anything about this that isn't in the public press releases. Well, aside from the obligatory "don't reach out to PGP employees before the merger is approved" from legal.)

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My experience removing Norton Antivirus

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:59:41 GMT

My experience removing Norton Antivirus from computers that were nearly unusable until it was removed has soured me on Symantec. You've got a lot of work to do to regain my confidence enough to trust a Symantec-labeled PGP with my privacy. Getting Phil Zimmerman on board, as a code reviewer, would help a lot.

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Symantec & PGP

Submitted by Ken Hagler on Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:05:20 GMT

That's a matter of bad QA. I don't think it will be an issue, though. Symantec products are divided into two independent divisions which have very little to do with each other: Consumer and Enterprise. NAV is a Consumer product, and PGP will go under Enterprise. I've been, shall we say, unimpressed with the competence of Consumer QA (except for the Mac group, which is its own separate world pretty much). Years ago when I bought a PC I asked someone I knew on the NAV QA team which NAV version I should install on it, and he said "Never install any version of NAV, use SAV" (that being the Enterprise AV product).

On the other hand, I wouldn't be at all surprised if PGP becomes even more indifferent to individual home users than it already is (if such a thing is possible) because of that rigid division.

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Thanks, Ken

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:04:04 GMT

Thanks, Ken. Good to know.

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Symantec owns PGP now "h*ll no"

Submitted by Defiant on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:02:47 GMT

The reason I do not care for Symantec is because my experience has been that when Symantec touches stuff it turns it into raw sewage. For example I was very happily using Sygate Personal Firewall Pro for years. Then Symantec purchased it. When I tried the new Symantec Firewall it was then and even to this day is pure s#it. To this very day I still use the last release of the old Sygate Personal Firewall Pro and I am prepared to abandon any further use of PGP past version 9 as I do not trust Symantec for one second! (Period)

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Norton Antivirus whitelists

Submitted by HonkyTonkinHellbillyRockin on Fri, 04 Nov 2011 05:14:58 GMT

Norton Antivirus whitelists (scans as safe) the FBI trojan virus Magic Lantern, designed to capture PGP passwords. How can we trust them with PGP?

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