User Guide

PGP Personal Privacy
194 McAfee Office
Using PGP/MIME
Ifyou areusing anemailapplicatio n withone ofthep lug-ins thatsupports the
PGP/MIME standard, and you are communicating with another user whose
email application also supports this standard, both of you can automatically
encryptanddecryptyouremailmessagesandanyattachedfileswhenyou
send or retrieve your email. A ll you have to do is turn on the P GP/MIME
encryption and signing functions from the PGP Preferences dialog box.
When you receive email from someone wh o us es the PG P/MIME feature, the
mailarrives with an attached icon in the messagew indow indicating that iti s
PGP/MIME encoded.
To decrypt the text and file attachments in PGP/MIME encapsulated email
and toverif y anydigital signature s,yousimply double-click thelock and quill
icon. A ttachments are still encrypted if PGP/MIME is not used, but the
decryption process is usually more invo lved for the recipient.
From the Windows Explorer
You can encrypt a nd sign or decrypt a nd verify files such as word pr ocessing
documents,spreadsheetsandvideoclipsdirectlyfromtheWindowsExplorer.
If you a re not us ing an em ail application such as Qualcomm Eudora, which
supports the PGP/MIME sta ndard, or an ap p lication suc h as Exchange or
Outlook that doesn’t require PGP to encrypt or sign files, you must use this
method to attach files thatyou want to send alongwith your email messages.
You might also want to encrypt and decrypt files that you store on you r own
computer to pr event others from accessing them. To access PGP functions
from the Windows Explorer, choose the appropriate option from the PGP
submenu of t he File menu. The options that appear depend on the current
state of the file you hav e selected. If the file has not yet been encrypted or
signed, then the options for performin g these functions appear on t he menu.
If the file is already encrypted or signed, then options for d ecrypting and
verify ing the content s of the file are displayed.
Selecting recipients
Whenyousendemailtosomeonewhoseemailapplicationissupportedbythe
PGP plug-ins, the recip ient’s ema il addr ess determines which keys t o use
when encrypting the contents. However, if you enter a user name or email
address that does not correspond t o an y of th e keys on your public keyring or
if you are encrypting from the clipboard or from the Windows Explorer, you
must manuall y s e lect the recipient’s public key f ro m the PGP Key Selection
dialog box.Toselectarecipient’spublickey,simplydragtheiconrepr esen ting
their k e y into the Recipient’s list box and then clic k OK. .