BKPGPGAR.RVW 950116 "PGP: Pretty Good Privacy", Garfinkel, 1995, 1-56592-098-8 %A Simson Garfinkel simsong@next.cambridge.ma.us simsong@expert.com %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 1995 %G 1-56592-098-8 %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O 800-998-9938 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 info@ora.com or nuts@ora.com %P 393 %T "PGP: Pretty Good Privacy" Part one of this guide to Phil Zimmermann's "Pretty Good Privacy" (universally known by its initials, PGP) contains two rather disjointed chapters introducing PGP, itself, and cryptography basics. After that rocky start, however, part two is both readable and rivetting. Chapters on the history of cryptography, the history and development of PGP, privacy, and patents gather both the technical and social aspects of PGP together in one place. The conceptual background for public key cryptography is presented both soundly and in a manner accessible for non-experts. The many controversies over PGP are presented in a very detailed manner. Part three, "Using PGP", has chapters on file encryption, key creation, key management, email encryption, digital signatures (authentication), key distribution and certification, and Internet key servers. The style of the nutshell books give a very "technical" look to the material, and in some cases the content is very terse in comparison to Stallings' "Protecting Your Privacy" (cf. BKPRTPRV.RVW). In others (such as key management), though, the text here is paradoxically clearer. In any case, the examples are straightforward and easily followed. (Readers may, however, be excused for failing to follow the explanation of Diffie-Hellman on page 356.) The appendices cover obtaining and installing PGP for MS-DOS, UNIX and Macintosh. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1995 BKPGPGAR.RVW 950116 ============== Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "Hey, when *you* have the Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca | box, *then* you can give Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca | us geography lessons. User p1@CyberStore.ca | Until then, Tahiti is in Security Canada V7K 2G6 | Europe." - Sneakers