Privacy software has never caught on with everyday users. Somehow it seems too esoteric, too complicated, too ... well ... nerdy. And, to be honest, early encryption programs did take a rocket scientist to understand.

The new PGP Personal Privacy 6.5.2 could change that. This PGP is GUI as taffy, as simple as pie; it is, in short, palatable privacy for the masses. It securely encrypts your e-mail attachments and disk files with its military-grade 128-bit encryption, and more. It not only works on the Mac and PC (and Unix, Linux, and Sun systems), it supports Windows 2000 and works on network servers.

Good thing, too, because e-mail isn't normally sent in any kind of envelope--it's the electronic equivalent of a postcard. Perhaps even less--a postcard can't be nefariously altered, forged, or misdirected as neatly and surreptitiously the way an e-mail message can. For years, privacy proselytizers have urged the communications industry to treat e-mail the way we do paper letters: Sign ‘em, seal ‘em and make sure only the recipient gets ‘em. As one privacy pundit puts it, "Ignore your privacy rights and theygo away."

In this column, I'll take show you how to use some of PGP's niftier features.

Lock Up Your Hard Disk

With the PGPDisk module, you can set aside an area of your hard disk---a volume--where PGP will deposit passphrase-protected, encrypted versions of your files.

Although it's really one large file, this volume looks like a separate hard disk to your operating system. You mount and unmount it by entering a passphrase. In unmounted mode, it cannot be accessed. Even when mounted, any file not open at the moment remains encrypted.

Clicking Start//Programs//PGP//PGPdisk displays a four-button toolbar, complete with a wizard that leads you through creating a passphrase, the virtual drive, and mounting it. The Mount button lets you open a volume with a passphrase; Unmount makes it unavailable. Preferences let you create a hot key for various PGP functions (such as encrypt current window or purge passphrase caches), and set a timer for automatic unmounting of the encrypted volume.

You can add, remove, and change passphrases from the PGPDisk toolbar. In fact, you can define up to seven sub-passphrases, to allow certain people access to specific files on your disk. You can also set files as read-only, in case you want to show files but not allow changes.

Once a volume is open, you can drag and drop files to and fro using Windows Explorer (you'll be prompted for your passphrase on encrypted files you drag out), and save files to the volume from any application.

Freespace Wiping

Need to be rid of old data permanently? You need PGP's Freespace Wiping. It overwrites "erased" data with garbage data, from one to 26 times. To use it, click Start//Programs//PGP//PGP Tools, and you get a seven-button toolbar. The last two can rid you of a file forever.

Use File Erase to blotz a single file you don't ever want recovered. Click the button, choose the name of the file from the Explorer-like window that pops up, and click Open. It's gone.

Click the Automated Freespace Wiping button and you can wipe an entire drive and set the number of overwrites. (The developers note that files have been recovered that were overwritten nine times!) Click Schedule and if Windows' Task Scheduler is installed, you can record what day and time a specific disk is wiped.

E-Mail Security

PGP installs itself as a plug-in to e-mail programs such as Eudora and Microsoft Outlook. You'll find extra toolbar buttons for encrypt, decrypt, and sign (adding a digital signature), plus PGP options on the right-click pop-up menu.

Under the PGP Keys Options, you can choose several automatic e-mail options. These include encrypting messages in PGP/MIME, encrypting every message automatically (not recommended unless all your recipients use PGP), signing new messages by default, automatically decrypting and verifying incoming messages, always viewing in secure mode when decrypting, and word wrapping decrypted messages for easier reading.

Encrypting A File

Using PGP to encrypt and decrypt files is quite easy. In Windows Explorer, right click a file, and select PGP, then Encrypt, Decrypt, Encrypt and Sign, or Wipe. Or you can display the PGP Tools toolbar and drag and drop the file onto the appropriate button.

If you choose Encrypt, a pop-up window asks you to enter the public key of the recipient. The encrypted file will be named oldfilename.extension.pgp. Now only your recipient private key can unlock the file.

When the recipient gets the file (and he must, of course, have PGP on his system), he right-clicks it, chooses Decrypt and Verify, and types in his passphrase. His secret key, stored on his disk by PGP, will decrypt the file.

Self-decrypting Files

PGP can also encrypt files or folders as Self-Decrypting Archives (SDA). You can send SDAs to users who don't have PGP, because they're completely independent of any application. The files are still compressed and protected by PGP's strong cryptography. To decrypt an SDA, just double-click it, as you would a self-extracting ZIP file.

How To Get It

The free PGP Freeware 6.5.2a is available at web.mit.edu/network/pgp-form.html for personal, private use. The $19 boxed version has everything the freeware version has, plus PGP Disk and two printed manuals.

© 2000 Elizabeth Powell Crowe. All rights reserved.

An author, online specialist, and contributing editor, Elizabeth Crowe also writes the Net Surfer column for Computer Currents.

Where to Buy

PGP Personal Privacy 6.5.2a
McAfee.com
List price: $39
800-NETSITE, www.mcafee.com/products/#PGPPersonalPrivacy

PGP Freeware 6.5.2a
web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html