PGP Encryption System as a Good Idea Research Paper

Introduction

Privacy and internet security is a subject of great interest in today’s world of globalization. The information we send or receive need to be in a most secured manner. Encryption is a form of coding the data into a form called a ciphertext which cannot be easily understood by unauthorized people. In order to decode the encryption, a decryption system is required that will be known only by the authorized receiver. Decryption is the method of converting encrypted data back into its original form that can be readable by the end-user. The system of encryption and decryption is gaining great significance in the world of wireless communications.

This is mainly because the wireless communication medium can be easily tapped and misused. Therefore, it is vital to use encryption and decryption systems especially to protect privacy. In general, it can be said that the stronger the ciphertext the better is the security (Bauchle, et al. 2009). This paper discusses the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption system in general and why it is good for both individual as well as organizational use.

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)

Pretty Good Privacy is in general abbreviated as PGP and is a computer program that helps secure online transitions. Specifically, PGP provides cryptographic privacy and authentication. It is often used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting e-mails. Today, this has become one of the most reliable privacy systems that are easy and effective methods. PGP encryption works by making use of public-key cryptography which is in general linked with the public keys to a user ID or an e-mail address.

The popularity of PGP is increasing among individuals, organizations, and business for several reasons such as its confidentiality, authentication, integrity, double encryption, etc. It is essential to ensure that only the intended receiver reads the message and for this purpose, the message is encrypted using the receiver’s public key that can be only encoded by the receiver using his private key. Hence, confidentiality is high while using PGP.

PGP a Good idea for Individuals

There are several reasons that PGP is highly recommended for individual use. It is a foremost contributor of privacy solutions that avert the risk of unauthorized access to the digital property by defensive it at the source. Additionally, PGP gives individuals full protection tools to protect themselves against privacy breaches. It is understood that it is only with the use of PGP’s technology that individuals make the assessment concerning the information that needs to be released about them, and also it gives the individual all rights to determine what information to be released. In fact, the latest versions of the PGP cookie.cutter help individuals to securely surf the Web, without any worry that information about them can be tracked by unauthorized users (ftc.gov, N.D.).

PGP has also helped to form a web of trust. For instance, if one user knows another user’s certificate is valid, then he can sign the other user’s certificate. Therefore, the group of individuals having trust in the first user will automatically trust the second user certificate. One of the greatest advantages of PGP is that it allows an infinite number of users to sign each certificate. In other words, a network or web of trust is developed as more and more users vouch for each other’s certificates (networkcomputing.com, 2009).

PGP a Good idea for Organizations

Several organizations use the PGP system for the safe transfer and storage of information. In addition to shielding or protecting data in transfer over a network, PGP encryption system is also effectively used to protect data storage for a longer period of time.

This is of great significance when it comes to organizations because it is possible to store private data in a most secured manner. The latest version of PGP is much more beneficial for the organizations as it has added additional encryption algorithms. In other words the degree of their cryptographic vulnerability differs with the algorithm used and in most of the cases the algorithms used in recent years is not publicly known to have cryptanalytic weaknesses (Wikipedia, 2009). Hence, it is always recommended to use a good encryption system such as PGP to ensure organizational privacy.

PGP provided the opportunity for authentication. The sender can encrypt the memo by means of the sender’s public key and also his own private key. This is known as authentication. On the other end the receiver of the memo then decrypts it using the sender’s public key and his own private key. Given that the receiver has to use the sender’s public key to decrypt the massage, only the sender could have encrypted it using his private key. PGP also uses digital signatures to integrate the memo. The digital signatures help to further authenticate the memo.

The security of PGP encryption system is comparatively high because of the utilization of double encryption. It is through a combination of both symmetric and asymmetric encryption that PGP ensures high security and also high speed. It is of great significance to the organizations because PGP allows the sender to send a single encrypted message to various recipients. At the same time it does not require to re-encrypt the entire data. However, if the sender were using a conventional asymmetric encryption system, then it would be even more difficult task to re-encrypt the whole memo for each recipient individually. This is not only time consuming but is also a tedious job.

Conclusion

PGP encryption is comparatively cheaper both for individual as well as organizational use (Alchaar, et al. N.D.). In fact, the commercial licence draws payment of a small amount. Since it is easy to uses for local file encryption, secure disk volumes and network connections, organizations find much more usefulness of PGP. PGP is a good option for both individual and organizational use as it is highly impossible to crack the double encryption of PGP. It is essential to understand the need for strong encryption as it is the only means to boost up the security and prevent crime. A strong encryption does not allow the easy tracking and therefore prevents the misuse of personal details.

References

1. Alchaar, H., Jones,J., Kohli, V. and Wilkinson, K. (N.D.) Encryption and PGP. Web.
2. Bauchle, R., Hazen, F., Lund, J., Oakley, G. and Rundatz, F. (2009) What is encryption? Web.
3. ftc. (N.D.) Consumer Privacy 1997 — Request To Participate, P954807. Web.
4. networkcomputing. (2009) PGP Grows Up. Web.
5. Wikipedia (2009) Pretty Good Privacy. Web.