Philip R. Zimmerman, the author, describes PGP as follows:
Read Phil Zimmerman's reasons for writing PGP
(from a live radio interview).
Read the reasons why YOU need PGP.
You will normally require your particular flavour of PGP and a "front-end" or "shell".
As most people, these days, seem to prefer a GUI interface, "Front-Ends" or "Shells" are available for DOS, Windows 3.xx, Windows 95, Windows NT, Macintosh, and OS/2. Alternatively you may prefer to use an " add-on" for your favourite mailer.
PGP is written in American English, and has been translated to many other languages.
Dependant on which version of PGP you use, it will come in American English, plus possibly two or three other languages. If your native language does not come with PGP, individual language modules are available. A translation to " The Queen's English" is now available.
Full documentation for PGP is supplied in the distribution package, and is also available in a variety of different formats.
Most countries place export restrictions on PGP. Check before you send a copy of PGP to a friend in another country. For these and other reasons, PGP is sub-divided into two basic types. MIT PGP for use in the USA only, and International PGP for use elsewhere. A quick look at the history of PGP would help to explain the reasons behind this.
In a few countries, the use and/or possesion of PGP is either illegal or frowned upon. I believe these to include Russia, the People's Republic of China, Iraq, Iran, and France. Even the European Union and the United Kingdom are considering restrictions. Yaman Akdeniz of Leeds University seems to be keeping a pretty good watch on what is happening in the UK. Get the International Cryptography Law Survey by Bert-Jaap Koops for more information specific to your country. Do not send un-solicited encrypted e-mail to your friend in a country which has banned strong encryption, or regards its users with suspicion. You could lose a friend - to a firing squad!
PGP mail can by detected by such Government organisations as NSA in the USA, or their equivalents in other countries. It is a relatively simple matter for even an amateur hacker to monitor e-mail for key-words such as "PGP". If you need to disguise the fact that you are sending and receiving encrypted mail, the simplest way is to use steganography. This is a process which turns your encrypted mail into something resembling plain text sentences and paragraphs. My favourite way of using stego is with Enhanced PGPn123, a combined PGP and Stego front-end for Windows (16 or 32 bit).
For those of you who think that making "secure" submissions of things like your credit card details, to web sites, using your favourite browser with its built-in encrypted mode, read this, written by someone with real hands-on experience.
In some ways, cryptography is like pharmaceuticals. Its integrity may be absolutely crucial. Bad penicillin looks the same as good penicillin. You can tell if your spreadsheet software is wrong, but how do you tell if your cryptography package is weak? The ciphertext produced by a weak encryption algorithm looks as good as ciphertext produced by a strong encryption algorithm. There's a lot of snake oil out there. A lot of quack cures. Unlike the patent medicine hucksters of old, these software implementors usually don't even know their stuff is snake oil. They may be good software engineers, but they usually haven't even read any of the academic literature on cryptography. But they think they can write good cryptographic software. And why not? After all, it seems intuitively easy to do so. And their software seems to work okay. (From the PGP documentation)
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