Publisher: O'Reilly, 1995, 393 pages
ISBN: 1-56592-098-8
Keywords: IT Security
PGP — Pretty Good Privacy — is a freely available encryption program written by Phil Zimmermann which provides individuals with the kind of strong cryptography that has, in the past, been available only to the military, intelligence agencies, and larger corporations.
You can use PGP to encrypt your files and electronic mail. You can also use PGP to "sign" documents with a tamper-proof digital signature, proving that you wrote these documents and that they weren't modified during transmission.
PGP has always been popular, but now that fully legal versions are available, the program has moved into the mainstream. Now, everybody wants to use PGP — to protect financial records, love letters, political manifestos, and ordinary files and email. "Encryption for the masses!" is more than just a slogan: it's quite literally what PGP offers.
PGP: Pretty Good Privacy is a complete users's guide containing everything you need to know to acquire, install, configure, and use the program effectively. In addition to its technical details, the book also contains the fascinating, behind-the-scenes story of how PGP was developed. It chronicles the battles over patent infringement and U.S. export restrictions on cryptography; it looks at the personalities — Phil Zimmermann, Jim Bidzos, and others — behind the software; and it explores the conflcts between individual privacy and U.S. government cryptographic controls.
One of the few good descriptions of PGP.
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