Pgp: Pretty Good Privacy: Pretty Good Privacy

by Simson Garfinkel

Use of the Internet is expanding beyond anyone's expectations. As corporations, government offices, and ordinary citizens begin to rely on the information highway to conduct business, they are realizing how important it is to protect their communications -- both to keep them a secret from prying eyes and to ensure that they are not altered during transmission. Encryption, which until recently was an esoteric field of interest only to spies, the military,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565920988
• ISBN13: 9781565920989
• Release Date: December 1994
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Very good historical perspective of PGP

PGP: Pretty Good Privacy Simson Garfinkel ISBN: 1-56592-098-8 Although out-of-print and out-of-date by technology standards, I decided to read this book to get a perspective of security from the point of view of the 1990's. I found the book to be an excellent historical reference. Obviously, the author did not originally write the book as a history lesson, but because PGP and encryption in general have advanced the book now appears this way. For those interested in the history of computer technology, this book is fun and although out-of-print, fairly easy to acquire. The book is well-written and easy to read. I recommend O'Reilly's "PGP and GPG" for those looking for a modern reference on using PGP in a practical setting.

A good PGP and cryptography primer

PGP is a fascinating tool. Most see PGP as a way of sharing files, but the creator of PGP, Phil Zimmerman, really want to make a *privacy* tool. I did not realize this and other things until reading this book.O'Reilly's PGP book can be divided into two sections. The first section is really a history of cryptography and how PGP fits in this context. I found this section surprisingly enjoyable as you learn about the long and tortuous struggle between the NSA and people who want to promote freedom and privacy. On a more concrete level though, you do learn quite a bit about different encryption algorithms and key algorithms, such as the RSA and Diffie-Hellman as well as other concepts important to cryptography. Admittedly, the history itself makes for pretty interesting reading.The second section is about PGP usage, and it is very thorough in its coverage. You will learn just about every possible feature in PGP, and how to apply them to a number of possible situations. I like reading this book over the PGP manuals just for the time and care put into it, if not the amusing examples.One thing other reviewers have rightly touched on is the age of the book. TIme has passed. The RSA algorithm is now free and open, and PGP clone called GPG is now in wide use. I am definitely excited to see a 2nd edition of this book in hopes that it will cover such things.However, regardless of the age, this book is an excellent primer into PGP and cryptography culture, and newbies like me will certain enjoy reading it.

Dated but useful nonetheless

This book gives an excellent account of how encryption came into the hands of non-spooks (and I don't mean Clipper). But what really matters is the legacy information on how encryption works. This information hasn't changed since. It also gives the reader a solid base of understanding of what PGP is doing when you use it. The book is also quite simple to read, so much so that I felt guilty for "studying" a book that was so easy that I could blow through a chapter in twenty minutes. One final note of importance is that because the book is old (94), it is UNIX-centric, which is quite refreshing in today's environment of applications written exclusively for Windoze.

Zimmermann was the creator of PGP

Several of these reviews are critical of the book, but they do not point out that the creator of PGP, Phil Zimmerman, was under investigation by the U.S Attorney General's office at the time that this book was published. Give these guys a break, if it weren't for PGP, we would probably not have a cheap way to encrypt email today.