Ask HN: If GPG is so great, then

2 points·rahrahrah··4 comments

... then should we be using it instead of things like TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt? What is the point of the dozens of encryption software that we have?

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TrueCrypt does disk encryption so that someone who steals your computer can't read your files. GPG does file encryption so that you can send files to other people without someone spying on you. They don't do the same thing.

Your question is phrased argumentatively ("If GPG is so great") for someone who hasn't understood the basic purpose of each project. You might consider asking with more humility and curiosity next time.

> TrueCrypt does disk encryption so that someone who steals your computer can't read your files.

Ok true, TrueCrypt does disk encryption. I know that you can't do that with GPG. But many many people also use TrueCrypt for file encryption. My question referred to this use case. When I want to use TrueCrypt to encrypt a file, is it always better to use GPG instead?

I think the answer is rather simple and straight forward: just as there are many people who have created different GNU/Linux distributions because they thought changing a particular aspect would be an improvement, people want to improve security and offer their version.

I'd have thought there'd be more to this, no?

Because look. I don't know anything about crypto so I can't evaluate either by myself. So my only criterion to decide which is better is to ask which one has been more thoroughly tested which is obviously GPG. So I would imagine TC would have a hard time convincing non-experts that they're an improvement...

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