Announcing the availability of RIPEM/SIG, an exportable signature-only
version of RIPEM, a public-key encryption program.

RIPEM/SIG is a version of RIPEM 1.2 with encryption and decryption
taken out.  RSA Data Security has obtained a State Department
Commodity Jurisdiction ruling determining that RIPEM/SIG is
exportable from the USA.  While this ruling certainly does 
not fully address the concerns of myself and many others regarding
the USA's overly restrictive export laws, it does ease things a bit
for individuals wishing to exchange authenticated messages across
international borders.

RIPEM/SIG is built from RIPEM 1.2a sources; thus, RIPEM/SIG
source code is not exportable.  The executables are exportable.
I have compiled RIPEM/SIG for several popular architectures
and have placed the executables on ripem.msu.edu, available
for anonymous FTP from /pub/crypt/ripem/ripemsig/binaries.
Other USA and Canada citizens are welcome to obtain the RIPEM 1.2a
source distribution and create and export executables for 
other platforms.

I also wish to announce the availability of RIPEM 1.2a.
There were no algorithic changes between 1.2 and 1.2a;
simply code changes to create RIPEM/SIG and to accomodate 
some brain-dead C compilers.

RIPEM is available via non-anonymous FTP from ripem.msu.edu;
RIPEM/SIG is, as mentioned above, available from the same site
via anonymous FTP.
/mrr