You know what I think would be a good feature? The ability to upload our public PGP keys to an e-commerce website.

Why would this be a good idea? Simple: You could enable an option that told their system to ONLY send protected, private messages to your email address. What’s the benefit of this? No one could ever successfully impersonate the business, and all of your business with them would be guaranteed to be private.

Just imagine how much grief would be prevented if you could do this with PayPal. If PayPal (and other e-commerce) emails were sent encoded for your public key then there could be no way to mistake a scam for the real thing.

Another use for it is just plain out privacy. I just ordered a new hard drive off of Newegg.com, and as usual I received multiple emails informing me of the purchase process; the order was placed, then it was charged successfully, and so on. Soon I’ll receive an invoice detailing all of the price and purchase information along with the code to track the package.

This purchase made me think of how much business I do with them. In fact, all of my hardware and computer purchases are made through Newegg. That sure is a lot of email coming in with details about how much money I spend on these types of products, and how often I purchase them.

I don’t know about you, but I would feel a little better if this information was kept as private as possible. What if I could send my public PGP key to Newegg? That privacy would be guaranteed, and there would be no way for a scammer to impersonate them.

Frankly, I think that it’s just a good idea.

~Steph

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