Total Newbie Question

[Cynyster]

Hi everyone. I just entered the world of encryption. I have purchased PGP
Desktop 9.8.1 Enterprise Whole Disk Edition for my new Toshiba Laptop running
Vista Business.

My question is where to begin learning this the most effectively.
What or where would you recommend that I look for tutorials or education on how
to effectively use this product to protect my privacy?

I would like to use this to secure my e-mail however most of those that I
correspond with will not have PGP. I have created a virtual encrypted disk to
store my documents but that is about as far as I am able to use it.

Thank you for any help.

[Tom McCune]

Post by Cynyster
Hi everyone. I just entered the world of encryption. I have purchased
PGP Desktop 9.8.1 Enterprise Whole Disk Edition for my new Toshiba
Laptop running Vista Business.
My question is where to begin learning this the most effectively.
What or where would you recommend that I look for tutorials or education
on how to effectively use this product to protect my privacy?
I would like to use this to secure my e-mail however most of those that
I correspond with will not have PGP. I have created a virtual encrypted
disk to store my documents but that is about as far as I am able to use
it.
Thank you for any help.

In my opinion, the documentation installed on your computer when PGP was
installed is the best place to start.

- --
Tom McCune
My PGP Page & FAQ: http://www.McCune.cc/PGP.htm

[TomT]

Post by Cynyster
Hi everyone. I just entered the world of encryption. I have
purchased PGP Desktop 9.8.1 Enterprise Whole Disk Edition for my
new Toshiba Laptop running Vista Business.
My question is where to begin learning this the most effectively.
What or where would you recommend that I look for tutorials or
education on how to effectively use this product to protect my
privacy?
I would like to use this to secure my e-mail however most of those
that I correspond with will not have PGP. I have created a virtual
encrypted disk to store my documents but that is about as far as I
am able to use it.

Here's a few websites that I've found useful:

http://www.mccune.cc/PGP.htm

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/uiuc/main-nf.htm

http://www.rossde.com/PGP/pgp_keyserv.html

http://pages.infinit.net/carbo1/PGPmadeeasy.html

http://www.pitt.edu/~poole/PGP.htm

I take your point about correspondents not using PGP. I shoved it
down my daughter's throat but of the few others I email she's the
only one I encrypt to.

My needs are simpler than yours as I only encrypt a few files on my
PC in case it's stolen.

If you want to test your encrypted email setup, upload your public
key to a keyserver then sign a post here and ask for correspondence.
You can test signing a post in comp.security.pgp.test.

There are several people in this group that are quite helpful and I'm
sure some of them will be along shortly with more suggestions.

TomT

[Perjut]

Post by Cynyster
My question is where to begin learning this the most effectively.
What or where would you recommend that I look for tutorials or education on how
to effectively use this product to protect my privacy?

I have found the PGP forums very helpful, this is group is also great
and for non specific PGP questions, alt.privacy

Post by Cynyster
I have created a virtual encrypted disk to
store my documents but that is about as far as I am able to use it.

I would go and try to get the whole disk encryption ,in my opinion it
saves time because you will not have to move the documents to the
virtual encrypted disk, but if you share computer then this is not
possible.

[Arthur T.]

Post by Perjut

Post by Cynyster
I have created a virtual encrypted disk to
store my documents but that is about as far as I am able to use it.

I would go and try to get the whole disk encryption ,in my opinion it
saves time because you will not have to move the documents to the
virtual encrypted disk, but if you share computer then this is not
possible.

Whole-disk encryption means never having to say, "Oops, I
thought that file was encrypted."

Many programs store things (such as auto-backups) in
different directories. In addition, Windows stores telltale
indicators such as the recently-used file lists, plus there's the
swap file.

I don't know about the PGP variety, but other whole-disk
encryption programs allow you to have virtual encrypted disks
within them, in case you want to segregate data by need-to-know
(or, as I do, by need-to-backup).

Speaking of backups, don't back up encrypted data
unencrypted. Back up the whole container. Whole-disk encryption
does make that a bit more difficult. (Hmmm. I think I'll ask
about that on alt.computer.security.)