Encryption

[DeltaForce]

I need some help sending encrypted documents. Sorry if this is not a network topic, but didn’t see another category that was better. [color=orange][Mod: I moved it to the Off Topic section.][/color]

Basically I am looking for an easy way to send information to one or two different people via the internet that would be completely secure. I also don’t want some program that is going to imbed itself in every menu, run on startup, slow the system down, etc. It also needs to be easy to setup and use – one of the recipients is at a beginner computer user level.

1) Is there a reputable free application that can simply encrypt text and decrypt it, and is easy to use? The idea would be to encrypt the message, then send the garbled text separately via e-mail; then the other person would paste the garbled text into the same program and decrypt.

2) Is the password protection on Word any good? Could I simply save the document with a password and then call them with the password so they can open?

3) Are free encryption e-mail programs any good? My worry here is that the program is going to imbed itself into my computer, and will be on every menu, etc.

4) Are there pay-for programs that are good?

Any other advice?

Thanks.

[larsolsen]

for what you describe i would just use 7-zip http://www.7-zip.org, which can encrypt files with aes 256, which is very secure. it is also open source and free. Just zip & ecnrypt the file, attach it to an email and ask the recipient to unzip and read the file. quite simple and free.

edit: just make sure to use the 7z files format, as i don't think regular zip supports the strong encryption

[proc]

OpenPGP/GnuGP is probably what you are looking for. Free secure encryption with sender and receiver certification (asymmetric cryptography).

FireGPG is a Firefox Extension for encrypting and decrypting text on the web.
It supports many web mails.
http://getfiregpg.org/s/home

If you don't have a webmail account you can use Thunderbird with PGP. See this tutorial:
http://www.encryptedemail.org/how-to-en ... d-and-pgp/

Just Google for PGP and email to get other guides or turorials.