Quantcast
Subscribe to magazine

For Your Eyes Only

Make sure that only your intended recipients can read your e-mail. Here's how to encrypt your messages with PGP.

Andrew Brandt, PCWorld.com

  • 0 Yes
  • 0 No

In our increasingly wired world, we expose some of the most intimate details of our private lives on the Internet--often without knowing it. One way this happens is through e-mail. The very nature of e-mail is such that your "private" communications really aren't. They can be intercepted, for instance, by hackers during transit or as they sit on servers waiting to be picked up.

Since we all have secrets we'd rather not expose, several solutions have been developed to help you secure your e-mail. One of our favorites is PGP Freeware. (The acronym stands for Pretty Good Privacy.) It lets you scramble your messages so that only your intended recipient can read them. PGP has been around in various forms for nine years, so it's reliable and battle tested. Its source code is available, so if you're the paranoid type, you can look directly at what makes PGP tick and convince yourself that the government isn't listening in as you use it. And best of all, PGP is free.

In this article, we'll show you how to grab your own copy of PGP, set it up, and use it to communicate privately and securely with friends, business associates, and anyone else on the Net.

Who says privacy is dead? It's only a software installation away.

  • Recommend this story?
  • 0 Yes
    0 No

Print 65% more pages than with refilled inks. Trust Original HP Inks. Hit Print Reliably.

Featured APC Accessories For Your System
10% Off Entire Cart at Online Store

  • APC Back-UPS ES Safeguards your equipment from damaging surges and spikes that travel along your utility & data lines.
  • APC SurgeArrest Performance Highest level of protection for your professional computers, electronics and connected devices, as well as provides surge protection.

Focus on Personal Productivitysponsored by Microsoft

  • Personal Finance 2.0 These free and fee-based Web services not only aggregate data from your online bank accounts, they give you tools for managing your money.
  • High-Tech Travel Tips Plenty of stories provide advice for elite mobile professionals. But what about you, the unproductive traveler?

People who read this also read:

PC World's Marketplace