I noticed something very strange that really should not be: official emails from UT are signed with PGP.

This is very strange because I have rarely come across anyone who used PGP, or any form of public key encryption, on a daily basis.

This shouldn’t be because it’s one of the easiest encryption methods to use. In addition, it is powerful and free.

So why don’t more people use it?

I actually have a keypair generated way back in the mid-90s. At that point, I was still using “edit README.txt” to get instructions. Of course, the passphrase for those keys are long lost. I can only hope that the keys have been revoked for staleness.

Even then, I thought it was terribly neat to be able to send encrypted emails. Besides PGP, there were entire mail services with security as a core component. I still remember my girlfriend and I getting HushMail accounts in all their garish purple glory.

Whatever happened?

GnuPG and PGP desktop are still free. The community, as far as I can tell, is larger than ever. After initial setup, the process is virtually transparent to the user if configured that way.

I don’t use it. Nobody else I know uses it. I wonder how many people who receive UT emails bother to verify the integrity of the message and signature.

I’d like to get your thoughts on why public key encryption isn’t more common especially with the high demand for privacy and security.

And for those of you interested:
GnuPG: http://www.gnupg.org/
PGP Desktop: http://www.pgp.com/downloads/desktoptrial2.php

PGP Desktop, despite the annoying “buy me” ads, has been really handy for local encryption needs on my Windows machines.

Now seems like a good time to create another keypair. Anybody want to join me and trade signatures?