[TriLUG] GPG/PGP questions -- was: CACert Assurance

[Tanner Lovelace]

On 12/20/05, Christopher L Merrill <chris at webperformance.com> wrote:
> I tried to get into PGP/GPG'ing my mail a while back (several years) but
> had kinda given up because the support for it in Mozilla mail was rather
> poor.  Now that I've upgraded to Thunderbird, this get-together seems
> like a perfect opportunity to get back into it.

Great!

> Can anyone point me to a good how-to on getting started again?

You'll want to install Enigmail - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/  Instructions
should be available there.

> What's the difference between PGP and GPG?

This can be very confusing since PGP can refer to multiple different
things.  Let me see if I can clear things up.

1. PGP (original) - A program called Pretty Good Privacy written by Phil
Zimmerman.  It's the original program that started everything in the PGP world.
2. OpenPGP - A specification on how PGP encryption should work.  Includes
key formats, how signatures work and how encryption works.
3. GPG - An implementation of the OpenPGP specification.  It uses absolutely
no code from PGP but completely (or at least as much as you might need)
implements the OpenPGP specification so that it interacts perfectly with
people usingPGP.  Keyring formats, I believe, are also the same between
GPG and PGP.

> How do I decide which I should use?

If you want to use Enigmail, which is pretty much the only way to get
Thunderbird working with PGP/GPG, then you'll need to use GPG since
Enigmail doesn't support PGP (the program).  But, since they're completely
compatible with each other, this shouldn't be a problem.

> Work requires Windows on my laptop - so I mostly live in windows - is
> that a consideration at all?

Nope.  GPG, afaik, works perfectly fine on Windows.  Here are a few
howtos to get you going:

http://wolfram.org/writing/howto/gpg.html
http://www.glump.net/dokuwiki/gpg/gpg_intro
http://technology.ohio.edu/email/gpgwin.html
http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=238100

You'll almost certainly want to install a GUI front end to GPG since
the GPG program itself is command-line only (which is one of the
reasons Enigmail can work well with it).  It looks like many people
recommend WinPT but I can't talk to it since I've never used it.

Good luck and enjoy!

Cheers,
Tanner
P.S. So, is Rick the only one who's interested in showing up tomorrow?
--
Tanner Lovelace
clubjuggler at gmail dot com
http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
(fieldless) In fess two roundels in pale, a billet fesswise and an
increscent, all sable.