Symantec buys PGP and GuardianEdge too
Symantec has announced a surprise deal to buy both email and data encryption firms PGP Corporation and GuardianEdge Technologies for a combined total of $370m in cash. The security giant is paying $300m for PGP and $70m for GuardianEdge as part of deals announced on Thursday and expected to close in June. Both agreements are …
... I completely agree.
I use PGP all the time and it has a nice light footprint. Tick tock now until the bloatware arrives via Symantec.
It was ruined when McAfee bought it way back in the day.
Never has recovered. Even when PGP Corporation went out and bought it back from McAfee.
Gone are the days, then, where full-disc encryption operated silently and unobtrusively, in the background.
Now it is to be a Symantec product, it will kick in, every thirty minutes, generating random spikes of disc-activity and unnecessary network traffic; gradually consuming 90% of all system resources. Within a few years, the only machines capable of actually running full-disc encryption, will be the same Crays, that you'd need to force crack the system, anyway.
'Daniel 1' wrote: "Gone are the days, then, where full-disc encryption operated silently and unobtrusively, in the background."
Umm, you mean the way that TrueCrypt does on my Linux boxes and Pointsec does on Windows?
That out of the way, all I can say is:
PGP + Symantec = Fail. In fact, Symantec + anything = fail in my book. Thank the maker for OpenPGP.
>>As the IT security industry begins to recover from the credit crunch
Not a "credit crunch" at all. The standard Keynesian Bubble Bust applies.
>> patterns from the dot-com bust and previous economic slowdowns are repeated
I hope not as that would mean an even bigger bust in 3-6 years time.
Having recently been forced to use PGP by an ITSecurity department from the dark ages all I can say is good luck to them and I hope they improve it.
PGP was the slowest, least reliable and most expensive encryption product of the four we tested prior to being forced to uses PGP as they were "a trusted name". We were going to use TrueCrypt but were told we couldn't because it was "open source".
The PGP consultant they then supplied was useless - they tried to charge us to install it, so that it was "installed properly".
I know some people don't like Symantec, but I'm surprised PGP are still in business.
"Symantec buys PGP"
A little part of me just died inside.
Symantec is already OEM'ing the Guardian Edge product. And encryption has been a hole in Symantec's portfolio for years. Make a snarky comment if you did not see either of these coming.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Network Associates nearly killed it, Symantec might well kill it for sure.
I really hope they'll honor my "lifetime license", as I really don't need all those upgrades they're offering. And something tells me that I won't need them at all, as they will be bloatware.
Crap.
Let Symantec ruin PGP. We have an open source clone we can turn to. I don't know the pros and cons of GPG, but it's got to be better than anything Symantec is going to release.
I've never been interested in paying PGP's prices when GPG works just as well and PGP seems to be able to use GPG generated keys. Symantec might break that, though.
First thing that came to my mind was thank goodness guardian edge bites the dust - PGP far superior
We had some DREADFUL experiences with Guardian Edge - poor reliability and support.
Pitty Symantec have wasted 70m on that.
I just don't beleive this is happening.
I mean, I got the email about it from PGP like everyone else.
But, the email... from PGP President... wasn't digitally signed. So I'm assuming it's a hoax, right?
You mean on Monday before they hosed a couple million PCs and their prices dropped like a stone? Isn't that worth at least a quick check of the current chart before writing into an article. I've been told thousands of times that Google is your friend for a quick check of facts like that.
You're right. I've never used it myself personally. See you on GPG soon.
Sign up, sign up for The Register's weekly IT security newsletter - click here
