Just a little addition to Randolph's comments. Your private key is the key that you need to keep safe and secure. Keep it in a safe place where people can't get a copy of it. Your public key, upload it to the key server and give it to friends, family, and people in general. When they want to send you a message, they will encrypt it using your public key. Your public key is a can only encrypt things (well, not quite true). Your private key can decrypt things encrypted with your public key. Now, pgp also allows you to sign an email using your private key. Pgp basicly takes a one way hash of your message (so that the message can't be reverse engeneered from the hash) and then encrypts it using your 'private' key. (Not anything encrypted by your private key can be unencrypted with your public key, and vis-versa). When someone reads a message that has been signed by you, it decrypts the hash (which will verify that you did indeed send the message), and then one way hash the email again, and compare it to the hash in the signiture. If they match, then you know that its also the message that you sent. Anyways, there are plenty of other intresting things in pgp. I highly recommend reading the pgp manuals (at least the ones that come electronicly with pgp2.6). It will give you a lot of insight into public key technology, and online privacy, and security issues, including the weaknesses of encryptions in general. Seth > Would anyone mind explaining a little about how PGP works? I > recently installed GnuPG... I vaguely understand the private > key/public key and how they encrypt/decrypt data. I don't know much > how it's used, either. If I encrypt something with my PGP key, and > send it to a friend, will it decrypt by itself, or does the other > person need anything? When I see the public key messages on the > bottom of an email, was that email encrypted? or is that just part > of their sig? > > Pointers or explanations would be most appreciated. > > Thanks, > Rob. > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Rob Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Web Developer > Visit the EUGLUG homepage at http://eugene-linux.cyber-dyne.com > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > ---------------------- Seth May (541)346-2470 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
