REVIEW: THE OFFICIAL PGP USER'S GUIDE, Philip Zimmermann The MIT Press 1995 For those who do not know, PGP (which stands for Pretty Good Privacy) is an encryption/decryption program that has become the de facto standard worldwide that allows users to scramble electronic mail and data so they can only be descrambled by the keyholder or person to whom they were sent. The real beauty of PGP is that the key required for someone to encrypt a message that is readable only by you can be freely distributed over the net without compromising its security. This is called public key cryptography. PGP also provides for a method of authenticating or digitally "signing" a document by its originator. Finally, you can use PGP to encrypt data on your own computer's hard disk to foil would-be snoops. PGP and its associated source code are free and readily available from numerous sources over the Internet and other on-line services. Phil Zimmermann, an independent software engineer and developer, is the original author of PGP. He is under investigation by the U.S. Government for exporting weapons, in this case, crypto materials which are considered munitions and subject to export licensing. PGP is so popular that it has its own USENET newsgroup (alt.security.pgp). THE OFFICIAL PGP USERS GUIDE is the printed manual for PGP written by the author of the program. It is essentially the printed and bound version of the ASCII manual provided with the program although THE OFFICIAL PGP USER'S MANUAL contains more. The foreword, A Pretty Bad Problem, written by John Perry Barlow gives us an insight to the importance ond significance of PGP in today's electronic society. THE OFFICIAL PGP USER'S GUIDE is well written and organized and the most authoratative text on the subject - as written by the author of the program. Other titles (three at this moment) on the subject may explain the commands in more simplistic form, but once all is said and done, this is the PGP reference work I prefer. The price of $15.00 is very reasonable and I like to think it will help Phil Zimmermann with his incredible legal costs (although a defence fund has been set up) in fending off the government minions who would like to destroy him and his remarkable privacy program and source code that he has so unselfishly chosen to make available to us as freeware. If you use PGP you should have this book! %T The Official PGP User's Guide %A Philip R Zimmermann %I The MIT Press %C Cambridge Massachusetts %D 1995 %O $14.95 %G ISBN: 0-262-74017-6 %P 127pages, paperbound %K encryption, decryption, e-mail, security (C) 1995 Michael Crestohl Nahant Massachusetts USA mc@shore.net DISCLAIMER: I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in the success or failure of the book or materials reviewed herewith, nor have I received any compensation (other than a review copy requested by me) from anyone who has. All opinions expressed are strictly my own. Other Internet and Aviation book/software reviews by me can be obtained by anonymous FTP from: x2ftp.oulu.fi in the /pub/books/crestohl directory.