Quote from: real pharmaceuticals on August 03, 2012, 05:55 pmOk so it took me a little while but thanks to the great advice and support of the forums I have finally got to grips with PGP , I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped me understand and thank you for baring with me. So before I decrypt a message i must have their public key ? right? any way thanks guys and galsKind regards RPNot quite. Maybe you made a spelling mistake and meant encryption, not decryption there.A public key is just like a mobile or cellphone number, or an email address. You need your pals to have it to communicate with you.So, if anybody sends you an email or PM encrypted using your public key (won't work otherwise), then you can decrypt it using your private key. Thusly;Public keys = used for encryption purposes.Private keys = used for decryption purposes (and encryption too, but that's a different issue we're not talking about here).