PGP key servers

As privacy concerns continue to grow with every fresh scandal, it brings to the forefront what we can do to keep our personal data and lives protected. One such method is with PGP.

This method of strong cryptography is one way of ensuring online communications remain confidential by preventing both eavesdropping and surveillance. Public key cryptography is an advanced form of strong cryptography best suited to personal communications because of its simplicity, wealth of features and the wide range of software that supports it. These features include the ability to:

• Encrypt a message/document that can only be read by a single recipient without you ever having met that person.
• Encrypt a message/document so that only a list of people you nominate can read it and nobody else.
• Sign a message/document so that anyone can prove that it must have come from you.
• Check that the person who claims to have sent a message is the person that has.

PGP key servers

PGP was the first form of public key cryptography made widely available to the public, rather than restricted to military use. To use it, you create a pair of keys; one you keep private on your computer and the other you publish on a PGP key server for anyone to discover.

Most PGP key servers are operated by volunteers on a “best efforts” basis, but at InternetNZ we think New Zealand needs something better and so we operate a reliable, free and fully supported PGP key server. We’ve put a lot of investment into this server and will continue to develop it as a service that all of New Zealand can rely on.