This is an open-source, 100% compatible clone of the now closed-source original PGP software, now owned by Symantec. When discussing PGP these days we almost always mean OpenPGP. Public key – distributed so that others can use it to encrypt mail for sending to youįor this tutorial, we’ll stick to how to use PGP for encrypting emails, but PGP keypairs are also useful for signing and verifying digital signatures.Private key – kept secret and used to decrypt own mail.The public key can therefore be shared freely – because it's what allows other people to send the user those encrypted emails. The private key should be kept secret, seeing as it's also used to decrypt incoming emails, and these emails are sent to the user via their public key. The important thing to remember is that PGP uses public-key cryptography.Įach user has a private key and a public key.
The details of how PGP works are, to be honest, rather complicated. As well as working in tandem with other system, regardless of the platform, PGP can also be used to sign and encryption all sorts of other stuff – though it's primarily used to secure emails. PGP has its issues (which we'll discuss below), but it's still the most widely used email encryption system, and therefor the most interoperable.
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