The digital future looks promising with a new programme designed to protect your private life from becoming public property
Welcome to a new era of privacy. In a world where anyone can see nearly everything any one person is doing, with just a little bit of basic hacking two men have created a multi-functional computer programme to prevent unwanted eyes viewing your emails.
The two gentlemen in question are Volker Birk, German Software Architect and an activist within the hacker community. Alongside him in this venture is Leon Schumacher, a former CIO of two Fortune 100 companies and current CIO of Pretty Easy Privacy, or PeP for short.
The basic idea of the computer programme according to the PeP website is that it acts, ‘like a tiny hacker … deciding on the approach to take to protect each communication on a case-by-case basis’ providing ‘end-to-end encryption’. PeP then acts like a shroud around each of your emails and attachments encasing them in a cloud of encryption to prevent access from unsavoury characters.
The programme is downloadable onto your phone as well as your computer, and works within your existing email accounts for ease of use and integration. This also means that not only can businesses small and large download the programme, but so can anyone with a smartphone. Birk and Schumacher aim in their venture to make high quality encryption available to the people.
Indeed, their long-term goal is to, ‘make encryption the standard and the unencrypted message the conscious, manually-selected exception’. This in effect amounts to a small digital revolution for the good of the billions of people who send countless emails each day.
In a world where it’s getting increasingly simple to access another person’s private messages, it is refreshing to see a company such as PeP making security software — something that was once only attainable by the wealthy — available to the general public.
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Christopher Sharp
Award winning Dyspraxic Journalist who's been runover by a lorry (how many of those do you know? ;-) )
I am a recent graduate from King's College London where I studied War Studies and History
I am also the co-founder of LGBTQ+ charity Racing Pride
