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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Phil Zimmermann.md
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@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Philip R. Zimmermann (born February 12, 1954, in Camden, [[New Jersey]]) is an A
### Background and the Release of PGP
Zimmermann took a bachelor's degree in computer science from Florida Atlantic University in 1978 and worked for two decades as a software engineer in cryptography, data security, and embedded systems. His interest in the politics of cryptography grew out of his earlier involvement in the anti-nuclear movement and military-policy activism of the late Cold War, work in which he came to see communications privacy as a civil-liberties question rather than a purely technical one. He has said he built PGP as a human-rights tool, intended to give ordinary people and political dissidents access to encryption strong enough to resist a government.[^1][^3]
Zimmermann took a bachelor's degree in computer science from [[Florida Atlantic University]] in 1978 and worked for two decades as a software engineer in cryptography, data security, and embedded systems. His interest in the politics of cryptography grew out of his earlier involvement in the anti-nuclear movement and military-policy activism of the late Cold War, work in which he came to see communications privacy as a civil-liberties question rather than a purely technical one. He has said he built PGP as a human-rights tool, intended to give ordinary people and political dissidents access to encryption strong enough to resist a government.[^1][^3]
He wrote that he was prompted to release the software by Senate Bill 266 of 1991, an anti-crime measure carrying a provision that would have pressed makers of secure communications equipment to build in government access. Zimmermann published PGP electronically without charge in June 1991, and within hours it spread across the internet and out of the country. He later summarized his motive in the essay "Why I Wrote PGP," arguing that "the only way to hold the line on privacy in the information age is strong cryptography," and in the slogan "If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy." The technical design of the software is treated on the Pretty Good Privacy page.[^3][^4]