1:00 AM
Paul B
As you know I am REALLY against CISPA and these other "Big Brother" laws that are getting passed by the U.S. Government as a reaction to an imaginary threat. I even dedicated my May version of Tech Chop to spreading the word about CISPA. You can watch that here: (The Horrors of CISPA)
If you follow me on Twitter, then you've probably seen me tweet about how if CISPA makes it pass the Senate, and President Obama doesn't veto that sone of a bitch then we as Amercans need to take precautions to protect our privacy. What that means, at least for online communications, is encryption! If you want to learn more about how you can encrypt pretty much anything you can watch my Tech Chop video on that here as well: (Encrypt Everything)
In that video I mentioned encrypting your email using a free alternative to PGP that is fully compatible called GnuPG. It comes in a Windows version called GPG4Win, and it used to have a cool Outlook plugin that came bundled with it. That plugin only worked for Outlook 2003 though, and didn't work so well for Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010. Well I found a new plugin that works fine in Outlook 2010, even though it's still in Beta. It's called the Outlook Privacy Plugin.
From their Google Code page:
Outlook Privacy Plugin is a security extension for Outlook 2010. It enables Outlook 2010 to send and receive email messages that are encrypted and/or signed with the OpenPGP standard.
Outlook Privacy Plugin uses GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG/GPG).
Features
- Microsoft Outlook 2010
- Encrypt and decrypt email using OpenPGP standard
- Supports encrypted attachments
- Supports multiple recipients
- Decrypts PGP-MIME
- Decrypts OpenPGP blocks in HTML email
Not Supported
- Encrypting with PGP-MIME (planned)
- No support for HTML email (planned)
- Multiple email accounts (planned)
This plugin is in BETA status and is based on an earlier plugin for Office 2007.
If CISPA passes I will start requiring all email communications to and from my personal email be encrypted with PGP or GnuPG. I will have an automated response telling people that when they email me as well. If the Government wants to play dirty, and go through my personal stuff without a warrant, I'm not going to make it easy on them. Let them try to crack it with their new spy facility in Utah!
What do you think about CISPA and encrypting your email? Do you already use GnuPG? If not why? Please sound off in the comments!
del.icio.us tags: gnupg, gpg, outlook, 2010, plugin, cispa, email, encryption
- Protecting your mails with GnuPG
- | Set Up Free Email Encryption In 15 Minutes!
- Want really secure Gmail? Try GPG encryption
