I am a believer in encryption for the masses. One of the most popular encryption programs is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) which was distributed by Phil Zimmerman. Encryption can be thought of as a digital envelope. When you send email it is essentially the same as sending a postcard. Like a postcard, your email can be read at any point along the way. When you encrypt your message it is like putting the postcard or letter in an envelope. People are not able to read the message unless they have the key to unlock the envelope. To learn more about encryption and to download the most recent version of PGP visit the MIT PGP distribution site. For those of you who know how to use PGP, here is my PGP public key.
Just to give you an idea of what encryption is, here is the above paragraph encrypted with my public key:
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0
MessageID: OdZ3qQNGb9KZ8+/DuodryD0Zoykbf5CD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=X1lb
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----