OpenPGP, Privacy and You:

I’ve been involved in the electronic privacy movement since 1992. Recently I told a friend, “I liked the world a lot more when I was considered paranoid, as opposed to pro–active.”

Eight years ago this page said “if you send me email, assume it will be read in transit.” People thought I was paranoid — I wondered if maybe I was — nowadays it seems like plain common sense.

That said, common sense is something we sometimes need to be reminded about. So once more, if you send me email, assume it will be read in transit. If you’re sending me something you wouldn’t mind seeing printed in the New York Times, then send away. If you’re sending something more private than that, you will need to take steps to ensure your privacy.

s/mime

If you use s/mime, feel free to ask me for my certificate.

OpenPGP

pgp is the leading email encryption software for OS X and Windows. It implements most of the OpenPGP standard and is largely interoperable with the gnu Privacy Guard.

The gnu Privacy Guard is another piece of encryption software. It lacks a neat gui, which makes it harder for newbies to learn, but it’s still quite worthwhile. I find that it implements more of the OpenPGP standard than PGP Corporation’s offering, has better support, and you can’t beat the software license.

Enigmail is a plug–in for Thunderbird. Once you get Enigmail set up, using email encryption is as easy as clicking on a button.

Finally, if you’re new to email encryption, feel free to join the PGP–Basics mailing list over at Yahoo! Groups. It’s a friendly, comfortable place to ask questions (even “stupid” ones) and get straightforward answers.

If you’re looking for my key, you can find it on the usual keyservers. I have two of them: 0x5B8709EB, which is a pure dsa key, and 0xFEAF8109, which is a pure rsa key.

Why do I have two keys? Mostly because there are a lot of tinfoil hat–wearing paranoids in the world. Some of them believe one is secure and the other insecure, some of them are of a different opinion, some of them… you just can’t reason with a lot of these people. Use whichever key you want: I really don’t care, and have great confidence in both of them.

Email me.