Can you help me open an Encrypted email?
GPG Mail 2.5b6, Build 917b
I sort of figured out how to send an encrypted email but I don't know how to let my recipient decrypt it. Any chance I could send you a test and then you can show me how to decrypt it? Most people don't know about key servers-- I don't either-- and when you send attachments, people don't want to open it.
I don't know about plugins. I use it on Apple Mail and I am running Yosemite. I should mention that I am trying to send iCloud emails.
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1 Posted by chosen1 on 16 May, 2015 05:46 PM
do you have any tips for the support query I put in last week?
On 5/11/15 3:28 PM, GPGTools wrote:
2 Posted by steve on 18 May, 2015 02:26 AM
Hello chosen1,
Before answering your question, I'd like to take a step back and look
at it in the context of public key cryptography (which pgp is based
on).
In order to send an encrypted email message to Alice, you'll need a copy
of Alice's public key. Alice might have sent her public key to you
directly, or you might have downloaded it from a key server.
(Although I note that your posting said "Most people don't know about key servers-- I don't either", so I'm given the impression that you
did not download Alice's key from a keyserver).
Under normal circumstances, Alice would take this message --the one
you encrypted with her public key-- and decrypt it using her private
key.
Was your message encrypted with a Alice's (i.e., the receipient's)
public key? If not, she won't be able to decrypt it.
Could you elaborate on how the encryption was done?
3 Posted by chosen1 on 18 May, 2015 03:16 AM
No, I didn't download anything. And my colleague wasn't told to
download it either. Basically I was using Apple Mail, and I just
checked the lock closed. I also sent-- in an attachment-- my public
key, but once the key arrived, the colleague didn't know what to do with it.
So maybe I've just got it all wrong... What would I need to do get it
going?
4 Posted by steve on 19 May, 2015 12:53 AM
I suspect that your colleague has no way of decrypting the message.
Let me explain my reasoning.
PGP is based on key pairs. One element of the pair is a public key
(which can be shared freely), and the other element is a private key
(which should never be shared). You encrypt messages using the
recipients public key; the recipient decrypts them using their
private key.
Based on your prior post, I suspect that Apple mail encrypted the
message with *your* public key, and sent that to your colleague.
Unless your colleague has a copy of your private key (which they
shouldn't have), or is an incredibly clever and talented
cryptographer(!), they won't be able to decrypt it.
In short, having the recipient's public key is a prerequisite for
sending PGP-encrypted mail.
If you're still getting your head around how public and private keys
work, http://gpg4win.org/doc/en/gpg4win-compendium_8.html has a nice
introduction. The GNU Privacy handbook is also a good resource:
https://gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html.
5 Posted by chosen1 on 25 May, 2015 03:53 AM
how can u tell the difference bet a private key and a public one? I
created something but I am not sure if they are private or public.
6 Posted by steve on 25 May, 2015 06:38 PM
Private keys are generated; public keys are derived from their private
key counterpart.
If you're using GPG Keychain Access, private keys are shown in bold,
and denoted as Type "sec/pub", where "sec/pub" means "the combination
of a secret key and a public key".
Type "pub" indicates that only a public key is available. See
https://gpgtools.org/images/screenshots/gka-key-list.1375965203.png
for an example.
More generically
gpg --list-keys
lists all public keys is your keychain, and
gpg --list-secret-keys
lists all secret (aka private) keys. These command lines should work
with any GnuPG port.
Steve
Support Staff 7 Posted by Steve on 22 Jul, 2015 03:27 PM
Hi chosen1,
sorry for not responding sooner.
@Steve: thanks for chiming in here.
Let's try to solve this mystery. First things first: Chosen1, can you please copy all version info as described here into this discussion.
Then visit this Getting Started Tutorial and in the section, where we explain how to create your first encrypted mail, closely follow the steps. Is that working as expected?
We'll go from there.
All the best,
steve
Support Staff 8 Posted by Steve on 26 Nov, 2015 11:08 PM
Closing, since no further user feedback was received. Should your problem persist, feel free to re-open this discussion any time.
All the best, steve
Steve closed this discussion on 26 Nov, 2015 11:08 PM.