Finally, you’ll need to consider how you and your contacts will exchange each of your public keys with each other (sending them in the form of a PGP key block or as an ASC file attachment via email is the least desirable, although there are a combination of digital and offline methods that can be pressed into service to provide at least a semi-secure transfer of the keys). While some PGP users would suggest that all users always use PGP for every single email, this is not always possible, whether because a user needs to communicate with an individual who refuses to use PGP, or because an email is being sent to a public email list anyway. The very use of PGP itself might attract digital surveillance by agents of the State, since even if they didn’t have a backdoor, they could still tell that you wanted to prevent at least casual decryption of your messages by third-parties of course, if more people used PGP that would it make it that much harder for government snoops to surveil anyone. Despite PGP encryption being still legally regarded by the central government as a munition, it is now exportable to other countries (provided they are not on the list of countries, groups, or even individuals subject to US export controls).

In regards to privacy, you should keep a few items in mind when using PGP. PGP uniquely combines both private and public key cryptography to provide the best possible “envelope” for your email communications.

Encrypted email is analogous to a letter sealed inside of an envelope while it is still possible for third-party interception to know whom the senders and receivers are (as well as the content of the subject line), they cannot read the message itself. Email that is sent over the Internet is akin to a postcard, in that any third-party who intercepts it can read the message. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a type of digital mail encryption program.

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