Beermad pgp

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

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=mrEi
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

What's this all about?

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and its Open Source equivalent, GnuPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) provide a way of authenticating and/or encrypting email messages (and other things too!)

Without going into too much boring cryptographical detail, you should be able to cut & paste the block above into a program on your computer which your email client will then use to validate that an email that has supposedly come from me has really come from me, because I will have signed that email using my own private key.

Using PGP/GnuPG can also provide a useful extra layer of privacy for communication over the Internet. What isn't generally realised about email is that it is quite possible for someone to intercept a message and read what's being sent; an email is more like a postcard than a letter, something which the CIA snoopers at Echelon use to their advantage[1]. So if you really want to be sure what you're saying can't be read by anybody who's tapping the network, you need to encrypt your messages. Using my public key from here also allows you to send me emails encrypted so that nobody but me can read what you've written. Even if what you're saying isn't particularly sensitive, it's still worthwhile just to keep the spooks busy, as when they see an encrypted email it makes extra work for them, which is always a good thing.

[1] No encryption system is 100% un-crackable, given sufficient computing power, so Echelon will undoubtedly be able to eventually read any encrypted email, but it's nice to think of them wasting time cracking a message that doesn't actually say anything of interest to Uncle Sam.