[OT] CLI for noobies: The keys to GnuPG

[R. Hirschfeld]

Clint,

> Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 08:57:34 -0500
> From: Clinton MacDonald <clint.macdonald@sbcglobal.net>

> And if Web browsers can do strong encryption without making the user 
> know about keychains and 256-bit encryption algorithms, why can't 
> e-mail?

You can get opportunistic transport-level encryption of email by
enabling STARTTLS in your MTA.  I don't know how many "major" MTAs
support this but at least sendmail and postfix do.  Do a Google search
on starttls+sendmail or starttls+postfix for details.  I've heard it's
particularly easy to set up with postfix.

For sensitive messages you probably still want end-to-end
application-level encryption.  A recent commercial version of PGP
("PGP Universal") is apparently designed to be user-transparent but
all I know about it is what's in their press release.

Ray