PGP email

[caspian]

I have wanted to learn how to use pgp email for a while now. Can someone point me to a good tutorial? Are there different types of software to use? And if so, what is the best one. I prefer free if possible.

[nix]

I haven't found any tutorials that utilize free software that I can recommend without reservation. And I've gone on some pretty exhaustive excursions in order to find one to disseminate, complete with screenshots, if possible. Many of the existing tutorials have outdated links, for instance, though they were valuable in their time. And I hate the GNU, Thunderbird, Enigmail setup from start to finish. If time is of the essence - if you are a journalist who wants to protect a one-time source, for instance - the last thing you want to do is talk someone through that.

There are several companies that offer free trials of their desktop software. Search desktop encryption, and you'll see the candidates. I have fooled around with many of them, and these proprietary products are indeed serviceable for their markets. However, if you're like me, and looking to promote free encryption to the masses, they are not a viable initiation point.

[Tadoussac]

I agree with nix, GnuPG - Thunderbird - enigmail plugin is complicated to setup, and the available online tutorials are not always up-to-date, and often confusing.

The core issue (in my opinion), is that PGP email encryption is a 1990's technology that was adopted by a small % of email users using mail clients like Outlook, Thunderbird, Pegasus etc. The arrival of browser-based webmail further limited the growth potential of PGP/GPG encrypted email. Bottom-line: Software Development in this area has dried up.

I think Caspian has 4 choices:

(1) Google "Thunderbird enigmail" and figure out how to install the various components the hard way. I did - and it works! (Good luck trying to motivate your friends or business contacts to join you).

(2) Check out http://www.gpg4win.org/ Although I don't use it, they claim to be developing a simplified gpg/email installation.

(3) Change direction, and explore email encryption using an SSL certificate (also known as S/Mime).

(4) Encrypted web-mail service such as hushmail.

[caspian]

Thanks guys for the response. A friend of mine gave me some links that I am going to go through.

http://www.e-ignite.co.uk/html/how_pgp_works.html

http://www.metrowestchess.org/commun..._PGP_Works.pdf

http://css.its.psu.edu/news/nlsp03/pgp.html

http://www.pgpi.org/doc/pgpintro/

[chronomatic]

All you have to do is:

1) Download GPG or PGP (your choice)

2) Generate a key pair

3) Configure Thunderbird (you need Enigmail) to use the key. This is simple to do.

4) Send your public key to your contacts and/or upload the key to a key server.

[Cutting_Edgetech]

Here's one for GPG -http://www.madboa.com/geek/gpg-quickstart/