PGP Offer

The PGP offer is intriguing:

Does it mean that we can encrypt our personal laptops and the store PM material on them?

Are we allowed to encrypt our emails and send PM material to others using PGP?

msr

 

I believe it means we can encrypt our personal computers; however we can't store PM material on it. It is designed for things like address lists that are MOD linked but not necessarily MOD material.

It will let you send encrypted emails to other PGP users but again you shouldn't be able to send PM material as you shouldn't have it on your computer in the first place...

I thought the particularly interesting aspect was the fact that if you lose a USB stick (or similar) which has been protected by PGP you won't face a disciplinary charge.

Does anyone know if DII has PGP? It would be quite useful to be able to email your own work email address with encryption.

 

I love how in work we have to even install unclassified laptops with BeCrypt, thereby making them Restricted. Doh!

 

It doesn't, which renders the entire programme fundamentally useless.

They should have recommended truecrypt and OpenPGP instead and saved goodness only knows how many ££££

mr

 

Something that works on an OS other than the insecure pile of w@nk also known as Windows would be nice too.

That, and the lack of integration with ArmyNet and DII, indicate to me that the Army has a way to go before they understand this sort of thing properly. Still, good effort in doing something.

 

But they are not actually doing anything.

I fear (uncharacteristically) you have confused activity with progress.

msr

 

DO NOT under any circumstances use PGP to encrypt your personal laptop if you ever wish to get anysort of timely functionality from them ever again. The firm I work for have insisted that all work laptops have PGP encryption with them and it has caused untold hassle. I've recently changed roles and gone back to a desktop and I am so happy.

Initially boot up was taking anywhere from 5 to 7 minutes, I know cos I timed it over a period of 10 days so I could raise a call to the service desk.

I'm not techy enough to know what else is out there to secure your hard drives but I would avoid PGP like the plague. Of course the fact that the MOD is going to use it does not surprise me in the slightest.

 

Then your IT bods screwed up the implementation.

msr

 

Fair comment, however the MODs IT bods, are they going to do anything better? I remember the debacle when they introduced CHOTS

 

Read the thread. It has nothing to do with the MODs IT bods, this has been procured for private use only.

msr

 

I've installed the PGP thing from Armynet on my personal laptop with the whole disk encryption thing and it runs just fine. Whilst I know we are not supposed to have restricted work stuff on our personal computers, it appears that as we are all being given access to a free copy of PGP, the 'system' is accepting the reality that we will do some work on our own computers (even if it's just report writing). I still use Truecrypt for encrypted volumes on removable drives. I agree that it would be useful to have PGP on DII so we can more safely send 'unclassified' (but still sensitive) work stuff to our home computers securely, but DII is so tied up in contractual red tape that I believe that this is never likely to happen.

 

Have you noticed any performance issues like boot up time or speed to launch applications etc?

 

I've been running it for a few weeks now, and no noticeable performance hits. Seems like a sensible move towards the reality of life.

 

Not noticed any performance problems. The laptop still plays demanding games like Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3 as it did before encryption. Bootup time has always been pants with Vista, so I've not noticed it taking longer with PGP whole disk encryption (I'm going to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as it comes out - all the boffins I know say it's way quicker than Vista).

 

Works for me to, nice too get some free stuff from the Army for a change. No noticeable change to my PC at all.