Encryption Noob Needs GPG Guidance.

[Harvey]

I'm no noob to computers, but I've never had a need to use encryption, before. Now, I have a project where it's required. I'm hoping to find one that's easy to install and get running under Windows XP Pro.

I've found a bunch of info about PGP and GnuPG (GPG). What I've read suggeests that GPG is the best way to go. I've found two versions, ver. 1.4.1 and ver. 2.01.

Some discussions suggest ver. 1.4.1 is more stable, but it may not be as easy to install. Ver. 2.10 has a conventional Windows installer, but there may be some other problems, which, in turn, may recently have been addressed.

Any help, guidance, etc. appreciated. Here's what I've found:

GnuPG 1.4.1:

ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-1.4.10.tar.bz2">GnuPG 1.4.10 source compressed using bzip2</a>

Signature and SHA-1 checksum for previous file

ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnu...upg-1.4.10.tar.bz2.sig">gnupg-1.4.10.tar.bz2</a>

More links & info:

OpenPGP - Enigmail

Enigmail Setup Guide

Enigmail Quickstart Guide

Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG)

GnuPG 2.01:

Site

Ver. 2.01 download

Checksum

FTP Downloads - All versions

TIA.

 

[sourceninja]

What exactly are you trying to encrypt? Files? Drives? Email? Just doing signatures to verify you are who you say you are?

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: sourceninja

What exactly are you trying to encrypt? Files? Drives? Email? Just doing signatures to verify you are who you say you are?

E-mails and possibly attached files in them.

 

[blackangst1]

Harvey-

I cant speak for 1.4.1, but I have used 2.01 and it's fairly user friendly; however, I usually end up going back to PGP. If all you need it is for email, no need to buy the full version. You can create a sig, encrypt and decrypt pretty easily with it. I know alot of people have their preference, but I prefer PGP.

I would also encourage you to at least familiarize yourself with basic cryptography, and specifically shared key cryptography (which PGP/GnuPG uses). there is a very good outline HERE.

 

[sourceninja]

If you use thunderbird, check out Enigmail. Not sure on outlook, but for apple mail, check this out http://www.joar.com/certificates/