Gnu Privacy Guard

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GnuPG

The GNU Privacy Guard

GnuPG is the GNU project's complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880 . GnuPG allows to encrypt and sign your data and communication, features a versatile key managment system as well as access modules for all kind of public key directories. GnuPG, also known as GPG, is a command line tool with features for easy integration with other applications. A wealth of frontend applications and libraries are available. Version 2 of GnuPG also provides support for S/MIME.

GnuPG is Free Software (meaning that it respects your freedom). It can be freely used, modified and distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.[1]

Features

GnuPG itself is a commandline tool without any graphical stuff. It is the real crypto engine which can be used directly from a command prompt, from shell scripts or by other programs. Therefore it can be considered as a backend for other applications.

However, even when used on the command line it provides all functionality needed - this includes an interactive menu system. The set of commands of this tool will always be a superset of those provided by any frontends.

  • Full replacement of PGP.
  • Does not use any patented algorithms.
  • GPLed, written from scratch.
  • Can be used as a filter program.
  • Full OpenPGP implementation (see RFC4880 at RFC Editor ).
  • Better functionality than PGP and some security enhancements over PGP 2.
  • Decrypts and verifies PGP 5, 6 and 7 messages.
  • Supports ElGamal, DSA, RSA, AES, 3DES, Blowfish, Twofish, CAST5, MD5, SHA-1, RIPE-MD-160 and TIGER.
  • Easy implementation of new algorithms using extension modules.
  • The User ID is forced to be in a standard format.
  • Supports key and signature expiration dates.
  • English, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Portuguese), Russian, Spanish, Swedish and *Turkish language support.
  • Online help system.
  • Optional anonymous message receivers.
  • Integrated support for HKP keyservers (wwwkeys.pgp.net).
  • Clears signed patch files which can still be processed by patch.
  • and many more things....[2]

Downloads

Trisquel/Ubuntu/Debian

In these distros it should be installed on default.

References

  1. ↑ Koch, Werner (2009/01/12). "The GNU Privacy Guard Website". Free Software Foundation. http://www.gnupg.org/. Retrieved 2010/10/18. 
  2. ↑ Koch, Werner (2007/11/02). "The GNU Privacy Guard Website - Features". Free Software Foundation. http://www.gnupg.org/features.en.html. Retrieved 2010/10/18. 
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