About PGP

PGP, Pretty Good Privacy, is a public key cryptosystem. (Also known as PKC; the information security field is full of cryptic initialisms, just to make it more cryptic, I figure!) The specific PGP application package we’re talking about here is PGP Corporation's PGP Desktop 9.0 Trial Software, which is an improved version of the legacy PGP Freeware (Desktop 8.x and below) product.

PGP for Free

With PGP Desktop 9.0 Trial Software, all product functionality is available for 30 days (except PGP Whole Disk Encryption). After 30 days, PGP Desktop 9.0 Trial Software reverts to the functionality available in what used to be called Network Associates’ PGP Freeware. You will have to tell it you don't want to register it every time you open it, but after that annoyance, it works like PGP Freeware used to work.

PGP Freeware is available for many platforms, including Macintosh, Windows, several varieties of UNIX. For a complete list, see the The International PGP Home Page.

I'm not sure whether we in the US are allowed to download PGP Freeware from the PGP InternationaI. It used to be illegal, but it might be legal now; the licensing for encryption software is very complicated. The PGP Corporation Web site has versions for Windows and Mac OS X that will revert to freeware; people running these OSs should use their software. I know that their software is legal in the US.

PGP Desktop Trial is pretty good software that’s pretty darn useful, even if you’re the only one you know who uses it! It provides:

• Encryption for the email you receive, even if it comes to you unencrypted.
  
  
• Encryption for other files and folders stored on your personal computer.
  
  
• Digital signatures for any of the above, which prove both the origin of the material and that it has not been altered.
  
  
• Shred, a secure delete. Normal deleting only removes a file’s name from the disk directory; its data remains on the disk until something else is written over it. Until then, you can use disk utility program such as Norton Utilities to recover the file.

Before you can use any data security program, you need to learn a bit about what data security is and what a data security program can do for you. A good place to start are the articles in the Jan/Feb/March 2000 A3C Connection newsletter about encryption and PGP. Also check out the references in the "About Cryptography" and "About PGP" sections in About PGP, Cryptography, and Security.