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Re: PGP...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Nope. With PGP you get 2 keys... One you keep secret (secret key), the
other you make public (public key). This way, if I want to send you a
message, I don't need to talk to you to arrange for a session key or any
passcodes, because PGP takes care of it.
Say you wanted to send me a message...
You check your keyring (pgp -kv), but alas my key isn't there. So you go
to the keyserver (http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html), and
retreive my key into a file (sean.asc). Then you run pgp on it (pgp
sean.asc) and it gets integrated into your keyring.
Now you type your message to me, and encrypt it with *my* public key, and
*sign it with your private key* (pgp -sea message_to_sean.txt 0xD12B3419).
Then you send it off to me. (The 0xD12B3419 is my key id, and is
displayed when you play with my key)
When I get it, I can export it to a file (message.asc), and run pgp on it
(pgp message.asc). Hey, it is signed, so I grab your key from the
server, and pgp message.asc it again. Since you encrypted it with my
public key, _only my secret key_ can decrypt it, not even you can see
it! Also, since only you have access to your secret key, (if your
signature checks out), I know it had to have been you who wrote the
message and it was not tampered with. (To be technically correct, I
don't exactly know it was you, since I haven't trusted your key at this
point, but we'll let that one slide)
- From this point, we can send and receive messages pretty easily, since we
don't have to snarf keys. It is also a bit easier than I make it out to
be, because there are many automation tools out there for pgp.
Sean
On Tue, 13 Aug 1996 [email protected] wrote:
> I'm confused.... if you don't want people to be able to read your
> email, you code it with PGP or other encoders... but why give away
> your key on your website to everyone? That makes your email readable
> to everyone... doesn't it? Oh well... I hope someone can explain this
> to me...
>
> Roki
>
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Sean Walberg [email protected]
The Web Guy http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umwalber
UNIX Group, U. of Manitoba PGP Key Available from Servers
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3i
Charset: noconv
Comment: Processed by mkpgp, a Pine/PGP interface.
iQCVAwUBMhCMc982JgvRKzQZAQEjYAP/SWjf2z2lZjYzBKVRMo9fcaMEZXiQSal2
YRjhzIXI9LyOF+mEz+KvPscJEsKqwM0JQl64ZpYhvp2junRly292jflIpxsnSJSS
ZteKoFJ+JE2Rd4TMDHbojucAEN4ZrW0G5y6RUcT5ntkKKWCzjGnYhSeM//bb9mOe
ccq+A8aI9dY=
=j2nK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----