+
+
+ For the past 20 years, GnuPG has helped protect online
+ communication.
+ Cindy
+ Cohn
, Executive Director
+ of the Electronic Frontier
+ Foundation (EFF), describes GnuPG as "the way that
+ I most often communicate with people who are in need
+ around the
+ world." 
Sheera
+ Frenkel, Foreign Correspondent for BuzzFeed News,
+ relates: "As a news organization, we're trained
+ on using GPG. "It's about your sources and what
+ happens to them when you leave the country and you publish
+ that explosive story and the government is looking for the
+ whistleblower that handed you that key piece of
+ information." And famously, GnuPG was Edward
+ Snowden's tool of choice to securely communicate with
+ journalists about the NSA mass surveillance leaks.
+
+ But, GnuPG is not only used to encrypt
+ email. GnuPG protects software updates
+ for nearly all free software operating systems, which
+ power two-thirds
+ of all servers on the Internet. And, GnuPG is widely
+ used by organizations and companies. For instance, Arthur
+ Jordan
, Vice-President of
+ Information Technology at 2U, told us:
+ "when we reached out to universities about how they
+ wanted to do secure file transfer, they were already using
+ GPG encryption."
+
+ Yet, despite the critical role that GnuPG plays for + journalists, activists, and lawyers in particular as well + as anyone who uses the Internet in general, in 2012 GnuPG + had a funding crisis. Due to a lack of + contracts, Werner Koch, GnuPG's lead developer, was forced + to lay off the only other person working on GnuPG + full-time. And, by 2014, Werner had to take side jobs + unrelated to GnuPG to supplement his income. +
+ The situation looked so bad that Werner was ready + to give up. But, friends convinced him to give a donation + campaign one last shot. The response was + amazing. Not only did he receive enough money to fund + himself, but he pulled in + 250 000 euros in small donations, and + Stripe, Facebook and the Linux Foundation each committed + to donating about 50 000 euros per year. +
++ The GnuPG Team at OpenPGP.conf 2016 +
++ Given this amazing response, Werner decided to + grow the team again. To date, he has hired 5 + developers, and the past two years have seen a number of + improvements to GnuPG and the surrounding ecosystem. For + instance, we've worked + on simplifying + key discovery, adopted a set + of Python + bindings for GPG, contributed some improvements + to Enigmail, + and + supported the + Gnuk project—a free source and free hardware + security token. +
+ We want to continue this work in the long + term. But, we want to do so in such a way that + our first loyalty is unambiguously to the general public. + This means making sure that a majority of our funding + comes from individual donors, and not corporations. + Further, to ensure long-term stability, our focus is on + recurring donations and not one-time donations. +
+ Our primary goal is to get donation commitments + for 15 000 euros per month—enough to + fund 3 developers. We can reach this goal if + just 2000 people donate 5 or 10 euros each month, + the equivalent of just 2 or 3 cups of coffee. +
+
+ The Gnuk Token
++ Our stretch goal is to double this number of + donations. If 4000 people donate just 5 or + 10 euros each month, then we intend to grow the + team, and dedicate them to helping other projects in the + GnuPG ecosystem. One project that we really want to + contribute to + is GPGTools, which + many activists and journalists rely on to secure their + online communication. We want to make sure that GPG + integration in Apple's mailer is supported as soon as a + new version of macOS is released. +
+ Now, maybe you don't use GnuPG to encrypt your email. + Nevertheless, some journalists whose work you value rely + on GnuPG to protect their sources, some activists fighting + for a cause that you sympathize with rely on GnuPG to + protect their communication, and some lawyers speaking + with their clients rely on GnuPG to help protect + attorney-client conversations. And, free software-based + operating systems use GnuPG to verify software updates. +
+So, if you are convinced as we + are that this work is essential to protecting democracy + and privacy, then please help us to continue our + work and stay independent.
+Our first priority is to ensure continued maintenance + of GnuPG. This entails reacting to bug reports, dealing + with security issues, and staying current with best + cryptography practices.
+The Gnuk + is a fully free software and open schematic + security token developed by Niibe. We want to + invest more in its production and + distribution.
+We want to improve documentation. One major + project in this area is a book that we have + started to write called An Advanced + Introduction to GnuPG, which will explain how + GnuPG works as well as best practices. It is + targetted towards digital security trainers, + programmers integrating GnuPG to their + applications, and enthusiasts.
+Few people use GnuPG directly. Instead they + interact with it via some tool. We hope to better + help these tool developers improve GnuPG + integration. In particular, we want to make sure + that GPGTools, + the GnuPG plug-in for Apple's mailer, works as + soon as a new version of macOS is released.
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+ This web page is
+ Copyright 2017 The GnuPG Project and licensed under a
+
+ Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. See
+ copying for details.
+ See the Imprint.
+ 
Gnuk