= How to Stop AnyBody Seeing Your Emails Except the Recipient(s)

  please send comments, questions, suggestions and recriminations to:
  matthew@ella-associates.org

THE INTRODUCTION

  If you are sending information in email which is 'sensitive' in some
  way, you should take measures to stop strangers from looking at your
  emails. If you don't use some kind of 'encryption' software, it is 
  pretty easy for knowledgeable people to view all of your emails as
  they are sent across the Internet. This is called 'sniffing'. If you
  are sending by email information like important passwords or anything else
  that you don't want strangers to see, you should use some software to
  'encrypt' your emails. The following text describes, very briefy, how to
  do this.

A FEW SIMPLE STEPS

  +
  Firstly, get a thing called 'pgp' which stands for Pretty Good Privacy.  Its
  free, good, and the most widely used encryption software.  You can get it
  from http://www.pgpi.org/ . Go to the download page at
  http://www.pgpi.org/download/ and download version 6.5 or 7 for your
  particular operating system, say Windows XP or Debian Linux. Also download
  the documentation, which you can get from the same page as the actual
  program. 

  +
  Unzip the 'zip' file using the program 'WinZip' or something else

  +
  Double click on the 'setup.exe' file in whatever directory you
  unzipped the files to.

  +
  Follow the steps of the installation program. It is all pretty
  straightforward, I hope.

  +
  At the end of the installation program you will have a choice whether to
  create a 'public and private key'. Say yes to this choice.  You need this
  'public and private key' in order to send secret emails to other people, and
  in order to receive secret emails from them.  When creating the 'public and
  private key' make sure that you give your correct name and email address.
  Now you have to get the 'public key' from other people (this is different
  from your own 'public key') so you can send them emails which can't be
  'sniffed'.

  PLEASE NOTE: this means that anybody you want to exchange private
  emails with also needs to install and use this 'pgp' software.  In most
  medium, to large sized companies, it is likely that people already
  have this software installed. Email each of those people who you
  want to sent private emails to and ask them to send you their public
  key. When they send it to you, it will look like a large amount of
  incomprehensible text in the email. You now have to put this 'key' on
  your pgp 'key-ring'. Please see below for how to find out how to do this.

  If other people are going to be able to send you secret emails, they
  will need your 'public key'. So email it to them. (See Below) 

  Pgp has a very good users manual. You can read it by clicking on
  start-->programs-->pgp-->documentation. But you will need to have a
  thing called 'Adobe Acrobat Reader'. You can get this for free from
  the Internet. You don't have to read the whole user manual. The only
  sections that you really need to read are 'Exchanging Public Keys'
  and 'Sending Encrypted Emails'. These sections only amount to a few
  pages, specifically these are the pages 61 to 83 of the users manual,
  so take the time to read them and you will be happy forever, I hope.

  Note: When you send people your public key you probably should do a
        thing called 'signing' it, but it doesn't really matter too much
	unless you are working for the CIA or Ella Associates.

CONTACT DETAILS

  please send comments, questions, suggestions and recriminations to:
  matthew@ella-associates.org

  Author: m.j.bishop
  
  
  
COMMENTS

  Added by: mjb, on Saturday, 12 April 2003, 06:09 PM

It appears that despite my noble efforts at explanation the general 'take-up'
on the pgp idea within Ella Associates has not been  fantastic. I understand
this but hope that after several cups of  strong coffee the Ella People will
come to appreciate  pretty good privacy 




  Added by: [anonymous], on Monday, 14 April 2003, 03:03 AM

testing