Sending Secure / Encrypted E-Mail

To send me email securely, please use my PGP Public Key, provided (below).

My encryption key is 2048 bit, which makes it more secure than present web browsers, which only use 1024 bits for encryption (2048 bit is considered military grade). So, you can be very confident that I (and only I) will be able to read your message.

To send an encrypted message, you will need to install some version of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software. There are many good freeware and commercial versions available. I'll discuss only Windows freeware options here. Commercial versions are great, but I find that most people are fine with what the freeware versions provide. For Unix / Linux users, PGP and/or GPG typically come pre-installed on the system.

  • For Microsoft Outlook 2000 and Microsoft Outlook XP, you can download PGP Freeware 6.5.8 that includes an Outlook plugin that makes it extremely easy to send/receive encrypted email right within Outlook. Download PGP Freeware 6.5.8 CKT. Be sure to download Build 008 (i.e., pgp658ckt08.zip), as it is the most popular. CKT is a version modified by Imad Faiad that I recommend for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is because it supports WinXP directly (for more info on this version, follow this link). To download the original, unmodified version, follow this link.

    Note that later freeware versions of PGP (i.e., 7.x and 8.x) do not include an Outlook Plugin, and PGP 9.x is no longer free (although the commercial Desktop and Professional versions do include an Outlook plugin).

  • For Microsoft Outlook 2003 SP2+, you can use the latest version of GPG4Win.

  • For Microsoft Outlook 2007, there do not seem to be any freeware solutions available (at present). Future versions of GPG4Win will definitely provide an Outlook 2007 plugin (and I believe a beta version is already available), and at least one user seems to be able to use the 2003 plugin within Outlook 2003 version (on Vista). For a stable solution now, the best option seems to be either to use PGP standalone (see below) or pay for a commercial version of PGP Desktop.

  • For Eudora, Windows users can try PGP Freeware 6.5.8 CKT, which includes a Eudora plugin. Be sure to download Build 008 (i.e., pgp658ckt08.zip), as it is the most popular. Mac and Mac/OSX versions of Eudora also support PGP. Searching Google for "eudora pgp" is a good start for any Eudora user.

Of course, if none of the above options fit your needs, you can simple download and install a freeware PGP that does not include a plugin for your email client. In this situation, all you have to do is copy and paste an encrypted message from your email client into your PGP software and then have the PGP softare decrypted the message, and do the reverse for sending encrypted messages (i.e., write the message text in the PGP software, encrypted it -- with armor -- and paste the encrypted message into your email client). Some versions of PGP Freeware even include a "Current Window" option that will crypt/decrypt the current window of the last program used, so you do not even have to copy and paste. PGP standalone is really that simple, so not having an email plugin just is not that big of a deal (unless of course you routinely send/receive large volumes of different encrypted messages).

  • For standalone PGP, I recommend a somewhat older, but widely-used version, PGP Freeware 6.5.8 CKT by Imad Faiad. Be sure to download Build 008 (i.e., pgp658ckt08.zip), as it is the most popular. PGP Freeware 8.0.2 or (the somewhat more difficult to obtain) PGP Freeware 8.1 also work well. If you want to try to get version 8.1, try first by clicking here (from pcworld.com.vn). Last time I checked (October 26, 2010), the link still worked. If not, visit this webpage, search for the word "unofficial" within the webpage, and try one of the links listed there instead. Note that many of the links listed there have spaces in them, for whatever reason, which won't work, so be sure to remove any space characters before you follow the link, otherwise it may seem as though the link is broken even though it's not. Mac OSX users can search Google to find a PGP client. Lastly, this link provides a brief but helpful discussion of the different versions of PGP and GPG.

PGP Public Key for Doug Morse

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
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FR11CA==
=KvU/
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----


This page was last modified on Oct 26, 2010 6:00 pm.
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