Protecting information from unwanted disclosure and modification is of utmost importance in contemporary times. This book provides a step-by-step guide to data encryption and digital signatures using Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) encryption software.

The book is written in a storytelling style as a conversation between two people, one a consultant on information security and the other a novice interested in protecting his sensitive information from unwanted disclosure and modification.

The preface provides a brief description of key terms associated with data encryption. It is self-contained and does not require a reference for further understanding of what follows.

The author moves straight into the usage of GnuPG in chapter 1. All of the basic commands required for the encryption and decryption of files are explained at a reasonable depth. Further details on GnuPG commands and examples on usage are given in chapter 2. The author explains user options in detail.

Chapter 3 introduces the concept of public keys. The author introduces basic concepts, including key generation, revocation, and expiration times. A detailed analysis of exact functions for public key-based encryption, decryption, and verification is given in chapter 4, and the concept of digital signatures is addressed.

In chapter 5, the author describes the use of digital signatures in GnuPG, and elaborates on various digital signature types that can be used with the software tool.

In the first six chapters, the author demonstrates the significance of key servers and how public keys can be published (exported) and imported from them. Chapter 7 outlines the steps required for editing and revoking public keys that have already been published and are in use through the key server.

Finally, in chapter 8, the author discusses best practices for verification of software downloads, the correct use of passphrases, and the vulnerabilities inherent in storing passphrases in the random access memory (RAM) cache of a machine. This chapter also explores the pros and cons of the very important aspect of full disk encryption (FDE), and various tools that exist for performing FDE.

The author does justice to his title by providing a really simple step-by-step approach for data encryption. The book is restricted to the use of GnuPG software. Any reader wishing to learn how to use this software tool will find the book extremely useful. However, a background on symmetric and asymmetric encryption, public key servers, keys, hashes, digital signatures, and verification will help the reader better appreciate the inner workings of the data protection and verification techniques described.

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