TECHNOLOGY - July 16, 1996

FTP to Include Controversial Technology in E-Mail: The Andover, Mass.-based company said it will be the first company to license controversial scrambling technology, called Pretty Good Privacy, for electronic-mail programs. PGP, developed by software designer Philip Zimmermann in 1990, lets computer users scramble data transmissions, making it difficult to decode without using so-called keys. Its free distribution via the Internet in 1991 prompted a federal probe into whether making PGP available worldwide violated U.S. export laws. That investigation was dropped in January, leading to the decision to market the software. This month, Zimmermann’s company, Pretty Good Privacy Inc., bought the commercial rights to PGP that had been owned by Lemcon Systems Inc. Terms of the license granted by Zimmermann’s company to FTP Software Inc. weren’t disclosed.