what's PGP?

[Ludootje]

I see PGP a lot.. I just saw a banner 'protect your desktop with PGP', so what is PGP exactly? A firewall?

[slacker_x]

PGP is used to encrypt e-mail messages so that only a person with the correct key can read it.

If you search google for something like "what is pgp?", I'm sure you will get hundreds of results.

I take that back. Over 2 million results

[ 22 October 2001: Message edited by: slacker_x ]

[Strike]

Actually, PGP can encrypt anything, not just e-mails :)

[Acidevil]

PGP = Pretty Good Privacy ;)

[Dark Ninja]

Also, because of the strength of encryption, there have been some issues with the US government concerning PGP. Also, from what I remember, there are two versions of PGP out. One is the US restricted version, the other is the international version. I would recommend the international version, which you can download at
http://www.pgpi.com/

It is a very good program. It uses public keys (which can freely be given out) in order to allow people to encrypt messages/files for you, and then you use your private key in order to decrypt the file.

There are some front ends for PGP, however, the commandline interface is also very easy to use.


Dark Ninja

[slacker_x]

Originally posted by Strike:
<STRONG>Actually, PGP can encrypt anything, not just e-mails :)</STRONG>
I thought about mentioning that, but I was tired. My guess it when someone says "PGP", 90% of the time it has to do with encrypting e-mail.

[X_console]

Other than encrypting, it also allows you to sign emails to let people know that the emails really did come from you. A check is run on the email and if it matches your key, then the recipient will know it's authentic.

An open source version of PGP exists for both UNIX and Windows: http://www.gnupg.org

[Ludootje]

ok tnx everyone!