Digital security with GnuPG plugins

The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) allows you to encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify communications and data, as well as create and manage the keys needed for these tasks. It is a full, open source implementation of the OpenPGP Standard (RFC2440) and is integrated into many Linux applications ranging from clipboard applets to instant messaging clients. These applications make it easy to use GnuPG for digital security in the GNOME desktop environment.

The applications we introduce in this article use GnuPG almost transparently, and you can get by without knowing too much about encryption or digital security.