Those of you who receive emails from myself may have noticed that my emails now have some funny business attached to them. There is a simple explanation- I’m using PGP to sign my outgoing emails. Ultimately, I’d like to start exchanging emails using full encryption, but it takes two to tango.
Here is my public key. Using this, it’s possible for email software to verify my signature. Further, the public key can be used to encrypt email text so that only I, with my private key (no, you can’t see- it’s PRIVATE) can decrypt and read what’s been sent to me.
I’ve been checking around and it appears that gmail is experimenting with PGP support through their web interface. Additionally, just about any email program (Thunderbird and so forth) can be setup to use PGP. Therefore, those out there using 3rd party email clients should take the time to install GnuPG and join the encryption bandwagon.
The hardest part is the initial setup. Once that’s done, composing and sending email is more or less the same as it ever was.