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Mark Thompson wrote on Tue, Jun 24, 2003 11:32 AM UTC:

Right, I'm not talking about simply ZIPping the files and sending them,
which I wouldn't call encryption at all. I mean using the kind of tools
they have on secure servers, which I believe use RSA encryption. I've
never needed to get software to do this on my own, but I've heard
there's a tool called PGP (for Pretty Good Privacy) that does RSA for
you.

RSA is the algorithm based on Fermat's Little Theorem, and on the
difficulty of factoring huge numbers that are products of two huge primes.
It was written up in a Scientific American column in the 1970's, and the
Dept. of Defense got all bothered and tried to suppress it on the grounds
that it described for a mass audience an encryption technique that would
be impossible for their biggest brains to crack. If RSA were not secure,
there would be profound implications to the security of online purchasing.
If any mathematician found a way to break it, he would make a name for
himself by publishing it. No one has.