Thorsten Maly: Protecting personal documents in email and on a laptop computer

• Customer: Thorsten Maly, Research Associate, MIT
• Goals: Protect confidential documents in email & on a laptop computer
• Solution: PGP® Desktop Home encrypts confidential information sent via email or stored on the laptop
• Alternatives: Combination of cumbersome & unstable freeware
• Benefits: Data security; peace of mind

Thorsten Maly chose PGP Desktop Home to encrypt confidential information in emails and to protect sensitive documents on his laptop.

When he moved from Germany to the United States to take a postdoctoral research position in physical chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Thorsten Maly needed to coordinate delivery of his personal correspondence. Maly relied on email to keep in touch with family, friends, and professional colleagues; however, managing other confidential communications proved more complicated.

The Challenge

Shortly before relocating to the United States, Maly decided to have the bulk of his paper mail sent to his family in Germany because not all organizations with which he privately communicated offered to forward his mail to an international address.

Protecting online banking codes. When his bank changed its online banking system and sent a new set of confidential transaction numbers to the German address, Maly faced a problem. His research grant was paid to the German account, but he needed the money in the United States. Physical mail would have been too slow, he did not own a fax machine, and email was not a secure medium. “Sending information by email is like writing it on the back of a postcard, and I definitely didn’t want my online banking personal ID number written on the back of a postcard,” Maly says. “Plus, I would be liable for any fraud or identity theft because I’d treated the confidential data without due care.”

Continuing need for confidential communications. Maly could have asked his family to read all 60 transaction numbers for his online banking over the telephone. However, he knew he would still have to address the problem of how to transmit complex confidential information securely.

The Solution

Maly had read about email encryption previously and now saw a real application for it. Although he had heard of PGP® products, he had no idea whether they would be the best solution for his problem. Complicating Maly’s search was his use of a Macintosh PowerBook laptop computer while his family used a PC running Microsoft Window, requiring a solution that worked across both platforms. To find a suitable solution, he downloaded a few freeware products as well as the trial version of PGP Desktop Home.

User-friendly, robust solution. Maly quickly discovered the freeware would not suit his needs. “The freeware alternatives were either unstable or cumbersome to use,” he says. “PGP Desktop Home was the most user-friendly and robust solution. The software walked me through all the initial steps, and from then on everything was automatic.”

The Results

Maly installed the 30-day trial version of PGP Desktop Home and asked his family to do the same before sending a scanned version of the banking transaction number list by encrypted email. “I was so happy with the software that I immediately went to the PGP website and purchased PGP Desktop Home for me and for my family in Germany,” says Maly. Since then, he regularly receives his paper mail—including bank statements, pension information, and invoices—as encrypted email from his family.

Secure archive on laptop. Maly needed to keep much of the confidential information at his fingertips, but was afraid it could be exposed if his laptop were stolen. Using the PGP® Virtual Disk feature of PGP Desktop Home, he created an encrypted drive that cannot be accessed without a password, even if the hard disk is plugged into another machine.

Convenience and flexibility. Maly keeps a text file of his passwords in the secure drive. “It’s a lot easier to remember one password for the PGP Virtual Disk than the 50 passwords stored on it,” he notes. He also appreciates the convenience of a single key. “I like PGP Virtual Disks because I can use the same key to encrypt them that I also use for emails,” says Maly. He backs up the contents of his PowerBook to a Windows server each night. He can rest assured that PGP Virtual Disk also protects the confidential data on the backup server. If necessary, he can access the encrypted drive from the Windows machine.

Summary

PGP Desktop Home provided a single solution to protect sensitive information in local storage or in transit via email. Now, Maly can securely keep up his trans-Atlantic correspondence. “PGP Desktop Home gives me real peace of mind because I know that my important documents are secure in emails and on my laptop,” he says.

Trouble-free security. Maly is glad he chose PGP Desktop Home over the freeware alternatives. “Of course, I could have saved a few dollars by getting a freeware option to work, but it was too much trouble,” he says. “I wanted a solution that worked right out of the box, especially because it would have been difficult to provide technical support to my family in Germany.”

Starting point for success. When Maly read about PGP® history, he learned that it was invented at MIT in 1991. “PGP technology has come a long way since its creation,” Maly notes. “I hope the technology I’m developing at MIT right now will be as successful.”

About PGP Desktop Home. PGP Desktop Home is an easy-to-use desktop encryption application that secures individuals’ most valuable and confidential information. PGP Desktop Home uses the same trusted, mature PGP encryption technology that has been proven effective by millions of users, security experts, and organizations worldwide to automatically encrypt email without pressing any buttons, lock down files in automatically expanding virtual drives, and Secure AOL® Instant Messenger™ (AIM) sessions between PGP Desktop users.