GnuPG: The GNU Privacy Guard

The Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is an open-source encryption, key management, and decryption application that is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). GnuPG is intended to be used for securing digital communications and data storage.

The main GnuPG features include:

• Is a full replacement for PGP.
• No (known) patented algorithms are used.
• Functions in a command-line mode and as a UNIX filter.
• Fully implements the OpenPGP specification.
• Is compatible with PGP versions 5-7.
• Supports the following encryption methods: ElGamal, DSA, RSA, AES, 3DES, Blowfish, Twofish, CAST5, MD5, SHA-1, RIPE-MD-160 and TIGER.
• Allows expiration dates for keys and signatures.
• Has translation support for many languages.
• Has an online help system.
• Can use keys stored on removable smart-cards.
• Supports the HKP keyservers.
• And more..

A wide variety of front-end applicaions are available for GnuPG, they include GUI interfaces, mail and chat program interfaces, and scripting interfaces.

Building GnuPG from source was a simple matter of downloading and verifying the code, unpacking, then running the usual configure, make, and make install steps. Using the code was easy, a quick pass through the GnuPG Mini-Howto document showed how to create a key, and perform simple encryption and decryption of a file.

A wealth of documentation is available online including numerous Howtos, Guides, FAQs, and online manual pages.

Stable version 1.4.2 of GnuPG was released this week. It features a number of changes to the ID card software, new command completion capabilities, improvements to the key cleaning function, and more. If you should need any encryption capabilities, from simple secure file trading to complicated security systems, GnuPG is there to help.

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