Short, easy to understand explanation of GPG/PGP for nontechnical people?

Question

Does anyone have a link to a good, but short (1-2 paragraphs) explanation of the benefits of using GPG/PGP signing and encryption for Email focused at non-technical readers? That is, why would someone care about email being signed?

I've looked but all I ever find are deeply technical, jargon filled documents; perhaps my Google-fu is failing me.

Solution

Why Use PGP? -- probably fits your size.

PGP is useful for two things: 1. Privacy and Security, and 2. Authenticity.
By privacy, I mean that you can prevent people from seeing things. For example, you can encrypt an email to someone, or encrypt a file with a list of passwords.
By Authenticity, I mean that you can ensure a message was sent/written by the person you think it was, and that it wasn't modified by a third party. Of course, these two can be combined.

Would also recommend -- GnuPG FAQ Advanced Topics for a quick read

HowTo and tutorial references afterwards,

• GPG Signing: Traditional vs. PGP/Mime -- good short reference
• The Ubuntu documentation -- GnuPrivacyGuardHowto
• GPG/PGP Basics
• Gnu Privacy Guard tutorial
• PGP tutorial
• Secure Key Generation [DRAFT]
• Quick reference Mini Tutorial -- (seem to have changed to this)

Take your pick on a comfortable read.

Comments

[indyK1ng]

Why was this downvoted? It is a computer related/technical question.

[Richard Hoskins]

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion.

[jtimberman]

I don't see how it is any of that, and it doesn't require discussion here.

[Richard Hoskins]

You don't see how a question asking for an argument is argumentative? You don't see how asking for two paragraph answers will lead to extended discussions? You don't think the efficacy of PGP signatures and encryption for email is subjective?

[Babu]

Jeez, he's just asking for an external reference explaining the pros and cons of signing emails. No need to get your knickers in a twist over it :D

[hyperslug]

@richard, perhaps jtimberman (and me) aren't familiar with the controversial aspects of this. At any rate, he just asked for a link.

[Babu]

@richard My apologies. I seem to have misjudged your intended tone from the wording of your response. :)

[jtimberman]

@Babu yup, exactly. I've been doing it myself for a couple years, and know the technical reasons, how to, etc etc. Want to explain to our nontechnical folks via link, so its from an 'objective' source :).

[jtimberman]

Nice, first link "Why Use PGP" would have sufficed :-)

[Teddy]

Link rot have eaten two of the links, including the first one which now should be phildev.net/pgp/gpgwhy.html

[nik]

@Teddy, thanks for pointing that out. Have updated broken links.

[Pacerier]

@nik Your second link ( ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/GnuPG-FAQ.txt ) states that the documentation is outdated. Is the html version gnupg.org/faq/gnupg-faq.html of that documentation outdated too?