Pretty Good Privacy -- The standard in both commercial and personal communications on the Internet. The uses of PGP are wide, and its strength is astronomical. The interface has even evolved to be something less than cryptic.

PGP works on a key-based system. In theory, every individual will have both a public and a private key. The system works such that person A can encrypt a message using his public key and send it to person B who can then decode it using his private key and password and read the message. PGP integrates with many popular e-mail software packages including Netscape, Eudora, Outlook and several others with little difficulty, making this process incredibly simple.

The standard freeware distribution of PGP includes excellent documentation with visual examples.

For personal use by American citizens, PGP is free, legal and easy to obtain and use. http://www.pgp.com/ is the main site for PGP-based software. PGP can be incorporated in secure file transfers, voice communications and text.

PGP-based freeware, which is most likely to be found useful, can be found at the MIT distribution site: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html

Freeware includes servers, clients, email systems, and more. The MIT distribution site has numerous links to other sites with information specifically on PGP.