PGP?

[tavalon]

Anybody here have anything to say about it? I've looked at it multiple times but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how it works.

[Zywiec]

1. Sounds like it provides pretty good protection. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

2. Your post sounds pretty cryptographic

[tavalon]

3. I think cryptic is the word you were looking for......

I just spent a really long time on this website http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=lossofcivilliberties.

It led me to think thoughts that may not be publicly sanctioned.

I've looked at PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) before but it has always confused me.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. agreed.

[tavalon]

4. Okay, I'll spell it out

Help me understand how this works in layman's terms. I am quite sure some of you use it, have used it and so on.

[salvorhardin]

5. What e-mail program do you use?

If you use Thunderbird there's the excellent Enigmail extesion.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/71

If you use a web-based email client like GMail or Yahoo there's the FireGPG for Firefox.
http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org

Also of note is Windows Privacy Tools (WinPT) which provides a Windows front end for GPG which lives in your system tray.
http://winpt.sourceforge.net

GPG, GNU Privacy Guard, is an open source and free encryption program. The extensions I noted above and WinPT require GPG in order to work.
http://gnupg.org

Here's a practical introduction to GPG in Windows.
http://www.glump.net/dokuwiki/gpg/gpg_intro

And finally, here's a For-Dummies introduction to the concepts behind public key encryption.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/64452_05-17-1999.html

[tavalon]

6. Thank you

Bookmarked and since I do use a web based email client (does the evil empire count or should I move on, I wonder?) it looks like my precious firefox may become even more useful.

[salvorhardin]

8. Just remember to use an SSL connection to your e-mail provider

For instance, if you used GMail it would be: https://mail.google.com

Otherwise you'd be entirely negating the whole purpose of encryption by using an unencrypted web connection. ;-)

BTW: You don't need any reason to encrypt your mail or files. In other words, it shouldn't matter if you're communicating stuff that might be considered negative or illegal. Encryption should be the norm. The analogy I always use is that everyone uses envelopes to send mail through the postal service and no one gives it a second thought. Encryption is nothing more than an envelope for your e-mail and files.

Oh, and you're very welcome.