Post Your Public Keys

Postby **Snorkasaurus** » 24 Sep 2015, 17:22

Unfortunately encryption in general (files, emails, data streams, or otherwise) is often feared and misunderstood, because it can be quite complicated. It requires that the user have a fairly detailed understanding of the transport process first, and then they have to learn about how encryption is applied to that transport process. When you throw in keys that are split in to public/private parts, numerous different algorithms, hashing, passphrases, and blah blah blah... a lot of people just shut down and ignore it.

On a related note... right now I am actually working on setting up a jabber server for OTR communications. I have it working in my test environment, but still have a bunch of work to do, like disabling all logging, disallowing plain text, user management, and easier authentication.
:berserk2

s.

Postby **viking60** » 24 Sep 2015, 17:45

Yes I have seen that many people - even techs - don't use encryption because when they lose their passphrase they cannot read their mail anymore.
The solution would be to write it down and put it in that ultra secret hiding place - under the keyboard.

Even if you make a wallpaper with your password in the computer room; your mails will still be encrypted on Google's Microsoft's the ISP's and NSA's servers.

Today your ISP can read your mails - all your mails - as much as he likes. That would probably kill him on the account of all the spam - but technically he can.
If I provide a webhotel for someone that goes for me to.

I give them a Centos/Redhat server with Cpanel where they can create mails and activate spamassassin - the works. It has everything; but the mails are there in plain text for me; operating the server, to see. And that is pretty much the most common hosting solution in the world.

Google has so many data that they use robots to read your mails - they are honest about that.

I consider mails to be almost as public as a web page - and I tell everybody who cares to listen.

With encryption that server is only hosting unreadable data - which is great!
Another "problem" has been the certificate where someone trusted Like Verisign says you are you after you have told them How tall you are and what you eat for breakfast.
There is nothing of that here.
You are asked how well you have checked the signature (I don't know is a valid option) and decide your level of trust.
Verisign did give people certificates as Microsoft employees some time ago - when they in fact were nothing of the sort - so I think this Openpgp thing is a better approach.

YouTube · Postby **dedanna1029** » 24 Sep 2015, 19:06

I am agreed with Blackcrack.

Blackcrack wrote:what the hack need i am again an other pretty good privacy ? for an better Privacy or better tell.. "i am alive" and need more safety ?

Per my signature:

dedanna1029 wrote:I'd rather be a free person who fears terrorists, than be a "safe" person who fears the government.

However, there was just a hint in this thread to install Enigmail, so just before bedtime last night, I installed it to Thunderbird (Windows unfortunately) and it found my key right off the bat.

Now what I want to know, is what the hell is the private key and how do I get it? I'm doing this for the learning curve, not that I'm really understanding it much.

Postby **viking60** » 24 Sep 2015, 21:58

We are all learning here so that is fine.

1)In Thunderbird clik the Enigmail tab
2)Click Key Management
3)Highlight your account and right-click
4)There you pick Export keys to file and save it to disk

Then open that file with Geany or another editor (Notepad) and copy the private Key (both your private key and your public key will be there).

That is what I did to add my private (Gmail) key to Chromium so that the encryption works there too.

Postby **Snorkasaurus** » 24 Sep 2015, 22:28

dedanna1029 wrote:Now what I want to know, is what the hell is the private key and how do I get it? I'm doing this for the learning curve, not that I'm really understanding it much.

When you generate a "key" you are actually generating a "key pair" which consists of your public key and private key. You don't actually get two separate files or two separate entries in your key management software, and it is probably easier to think of public and private being two halves of the same key.

The public "half" is the one you give away freely to everyone in the world. It allows them to verify that your signed messages really came from you, and it allows them to encrypt things to send to you (that only your private half can decrypt).

The private "half" is the one you do not give away. It allows you to decrypt messages that have been encrypted with your public key, and it allows you to sign messages (to prove you really are the sender).

Your "keyring" will probably consist of:

your private half
your public half
the public halves of everyone you want to send encrypted messages to.

The gpg4win manual has a procedure similar to the one viking60 describes for exporting private keys.

s.

YouTube · Postby **dedanna1029** » 25 Sep 2015, 06:10

Thanks.

I'm assuming the safest place to store these would be on a flash stick or other medium not on the computer's hard drive?

Postby **viking60** » 25 Sep 2015, 09:07

Yes I have it in an encrypted part of my disk - and will be a good boy and put it on a dongle ..eventually. When your computer breaks; you still will need to access your (encrypted) mail so a dongle would come in handy then.
But as Snork said 98 to 99% of your mails won't be encrypted so that is as accessible as ever - even without the keys.
....
This should really be more common than it is. I wonder if we can force b1o and jkerr to provide some public keys at least in PM :think:

They need that for their privacy image

Postby **Snorkasaurus** » 25 Sep 2015, 13:15

What I often suggest for external backup drives (for all data, not just PGP keys) is to make an arrangement with a friend who will swap backup drives with you, or bring it to work if you have to. If you keep your backups at home, then a single event (break in, fire, flood, etc.) could damage both your original and your backup - and it is gone. Keeping your backups at a remote location can help protect against some unfortunate circumstances!

Alternatively, if you have the bandwidth available, you have a PC that is always on, and your data is small enough... you could setup a script that backs up to a remote location automatically over the Internet through a tunnel. My web/mail/etc server is at "someone else's house" and I have a script that backups up [both directions] through an SSH tunnel every night automatically. It only transfers changed/new files and works great for most data, but I have to separately use an external drive for very large files like ISO's.

s.

YouTube · Postby **dedanna1029** » 25 Sep 2015, 19:42

Just my luck, my friend would have the fire. Er, just their luck. Or something.

Postby **viking60** » 26 Sep 2015, 04:47

Yeah friends are the new Clouds :-D

It does make sense to have the backup separated from the computer and even the building.

YouTube · Postby **dedanna1029** » 26 Sep 2015, 09:11

It does, but insofar as until that building burns down or floods. lol

YouTube · Postby **dedanna1029** » 28 Oct 2015, 05:14

Different email address (I still have and use the one you guys had):

Code: Select all

Now with that being said I don't know if I'll ever actually use these things, but in case I do.
I'm still somewhat lost with all this.
It really should be a lot easier to grasp to do something like this, y'know? To be able to keep ourselves safe should be simple and non-confusing.

bjoernvold.com

Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys

Re: Post Your Public Keys