PGP

(Pretty Good Privacy) A data encryption program from PGP Corporation, Palo Alto, CA (www.pgp.com). Published as freeware in 1991 and widely used around the world for encrypting e-mail messages and securing files, PGP is available for commercial use and as freeware for personal use. Freeware versions are also available from www.pgpi.org.

For e-mail, PGP sends the key and the encrypted message at the same time. It encrypts the key using a public key algorithm such as RSA and encrypts the message using a secret key algorithm such as IDEA (the original), CAST5, Triple DES and AES. On the receiving side, the secret key (using the public key method) is decrypted first so it can be used to decrypt the message. PGP also supports digital signatures and PKI.

PGP was developed by Phil Zimmermann, founder of Pretty Good Privacy, Inc., San Mateo, CA. For his pioneering work in cryptography, Zimmermann received numerous awards (his personal Web site is www.philzimmermann.com). In 1997, Network Associates acquired his company. Also in that year, the IETF formed the OpenPGP working group to support an open standard based on PGP. In 2002, the PGP assets from Network Associates were acquired by the newly formed PGP Corporation, and Zimmermann became a consultant to the company. See cryptography, digital signature and web of trust.

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PGP - Pretty Good Privacy