Facebook now supporting PGP email encryption

Facebook has been releasing some updates and one of the more interesting allows you to add your public PGP email encryption keys to your Facebook profile so they easy for other people to find.

Personally I think this is a great feature. Email encryption is very much forgotten by most people, and certainly taking responsibility for secure communications, in theses days of NSA and GCHQ monitoring, is a must for some people. PGP isn’t perfect but using it for point-to-point encryption is certainly the best option we have right now and being able to easily grab someone’s encryption key will make it easier to get started.

Here’s how to add a PGP key to your profile in Facebook.

1. Go to your Facebook profile and click on the About tab.
2. Scroll  down and click on “Contacts and Basic Info”.
3. Click Edit next to the PGP Public Key section.
4. Copy your PGP Public Key from your PGP tool of choice – I use the handy Mailvelope Chrome plugin – and paste the key in to the box. Be sure not to paste your private key. Your public key will begin and end with the words “PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK”.
   
5. Click Save and you are done.