What is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)?
"Want to fight
Carnivore?"
PGP® or Pretty Good Privacy® is a
powerful cryptographic product family that enables
people to securely exchange messages, and to secure
files, disk volumes and network connections with both privacy
and strong authentication.
Privacy means that
only the intended recipient of a message can read it. By
providing the ability to encrypt messages, PGP provides
protection against anyone eavesdropping on the network.
Even if the information is intercepted, it is completely
unreadable to the snooper. Authentication
identifies the origin of the information, certainty that
it is authentic, and that it has not been altered.
Authentication also provides an extremely valuable tool
in network security: verification of the identity of an
individual. In addition to secure messaging, PGP
also provides secure data storage, enabling you to
encrypt files stored on your computer. Version
6.5.8 also includes PGPnet - a powerful VPN client
which enables secure peer-to-peer IP-based network
connections - and Self-Decrypting Archives (SDAs)
which allow you to exchange information securely even
with those who do not have PGP.
MIT distributes PGP Freeware without
cost for personal, non-commercial use. This
distribution is done in cooperation with Philip
Zimmermann, the original author of PGP, Network
Associates, and with RSA
Security, which licenses patents and software for
one of the public-key encryption technologies on which
PGP utilizes. To see a statement from Phil
Zimmermann about the cryptographic integrity of PGP,
please click here.
To obtain PGP Freeware, see below.
To obtain a copy of PGP for
commercial use, please contact Network
Associates.
How to obtain PGP Freeware from MIT
PGP is distributed by MIT only to
U.S. citizens in the United States, or to Canadian
citizens in Canada.
MIT distributes PGP both in source and
in executable-only versions. PGP is available for most
Windows, Macintosh, and Unix platforms.
The following are the current versions
of PGP available from MIT:
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| PGP
Command Line Freeware v6.5.8 |
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| AIX, HPUX, Linux,
Solaris, Windows NT/2000 |
What's
New |
Download |
Integrating PGP with Various E-Mail
Products
PGP Freeware provides integrated plug-ins
for most popular e-mail programs such as Microsoft
Outlook 97/98/2000, Microsoft Outlook Express 4.x/5.x,
Qualcomm Eudora 4.x and Claris Emailer 2.x. These
plug-ins provide an easy way for sending secure e-mail
messages to other users. For users using PGP
Command Line Freeware 6.5.8 or PGP 2.6.2, please refer
to the instructions below (please note that some of
this information may only be valid for PGP 2.6.2).
PGP is much more convenient to use in
conjunction with an interface that integrates it into
programs for reading and sending mail. Several such
interfaces are available for popular mail programs. The
ones distributed by MIT are:
Here are some other PGP/mail
interfaces (not distributed by MIT):
- For users of MH mail on Unix, exmh
is an X Window System user interface to MH mail,
which provides PGP support. You can find information
about exmh here.
- Offline
AutoPGP is a PGP-based e-mail encryption package
for use with PGP and offline mail readers on DOS
machines.
- Fran Litterio maintains an
extensive list of PGP-related utilities and
interfaces to various mailers. You can find this here.
Public PGP Key Servers
Once you get PGP and start using it, you
might want to consider using the Public
PGP Key Server that is available on the web.
Other MIT information about PGP
A PGP
2.6.2 Frequently Asked Questions document that
answers commonly asked questions and discusses known
bugs.
The October 1994 announcement
of the DOS/Unix PGP 2.6.2 release.
A FAQ
sheet that accompanied MIT's original release of PGP
2.6 in June, 1994. (This is out of date.)
A document that describes the file
formats used by PGP.
Books about PGP
- The
Official PGP User's Guide by Phil
Zimmermann, MIT Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-262-74017-6,
216 pages, Paperback, $14.95
- PGP:
Source Code and Internals by Phil
Zimmermann, MIT Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-262-24039-4,
900 pages, Hardcover, $60.00
- PGP:
Pretty Good Privacy by Simson Garfinkel,
O'Reilly & Associates, 1994, ISBN:
1-56592-098-8.
- Protect Your Privacy - A Guide
for PGP Users by William Stallings.
Prentice-Hall, 1994, ISBN 0-13-185596-4.
PGP information available on the
Internet
There are extensive archives of PGP
information available on the Internet. Information
includes background on cryptography, legal issues
involved with PGP use, and other sources of PGP
software.
The following sources are particularly
useful, and they have links to many others:
