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GNU Privacy Guard
Complete implementation of the OpenPGP and S/MIME standards / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP).
GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG) is a free-software replacement for Symantec's cryptographic software suite PGP. The software is compliant with RFC 4880, the IETF standards-track specification of OpenPGP. Modern versions of PGP are interoperable with GnuPG and other OpenPGP v4-compliant systems.[4]
Quick Facts Original author(s), Developer(s) ...
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Original author(s) | Werner Koch |
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Developer(s) | GNU Project |
Initial release | 7 September 1999; 24 years ago (1999-09-07) |
Stable release(s) | |
Preview release(s) | |
Repository | dev |
Written in | C |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows, macOS, RISC OS, Android, Linux |
Type | OpenPGP |
License | 2007: GPL-3.0-or-later[lower-alpha 1] 1997: GPL-2.0-or-later[lower-alpha 2] |
Website | gnupg |
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November 2023 saw two drafts aiming to update the 2007 OpenPGP v4 specification (RFC4880), ultimately resulting in the RFC 9580 proposed standard in July 2024. The proposal from the GnuPG developers is called LibrePGP. [5]
GnuPG is part of the GNU Project and received major funding from the German government in 1999.[6]