Tag: Pretty Good Privacy

Introduction

In this article, we will be exploring GnuPG or GPG as it is more commonly known. We will discuss if this software platform is still needed, if it will still be useful in the future, and how to install and utilize it. 

This article will discuss the methods to send information securely over email using GPG/PGP as the main encryption tool. The difference between PGP and GPG is mainly that PGP is a proprietary solution controlled by Symantec, and GPG is the open-source standard that is defined by RFC 4880. Functionally, each format is virtually identical due to GPG being the offspring of the original PGP standard. Because there are numerous email clients, specific GPG settings will vary. For this tutorial, we will use Gmail and Thunderbird as examples. 

What is GPG?

GnuPG (or Gnu Privacy Guard) is an adaptation of an earlier encryption standard known as PGP (or Pretty Good Privacy). GPG uses the method of "public" and "private" keys for the encryption and signing of messages or data.