[kwlug-disc] Looking for resources to better understand GPG.

[Hubert Chathi]

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 11:06:30 -0400, "bob+kwlug at softscape.ca" <bob+kwlug at softscape.ca> said:

> Some good points all around and some good discussion about GPG/PGP and
> its shortcomings and challenges.

> I have ordered the No Starch book. The sample chapter on their website
> looks to be the type of delivery I'm looking for.

> With respect to GPG/PGP usability, my primary purpose for it has been
> to maintain an encrypted text file of all my super-secret stuff. I
> figured the crypto was good enough and the tool open enough that short
> of losing my key, I would have really good data-at-rest and a platform
> that wasn't beholden to some company and their proprietary product. I
> need to upgrade the machine that's kept on, so I wanted to understand
> better what GPG was doing to make sure I wasn't doing something dumb.

If your editor has some sort of support for GPG, then it should be
fairly doable.  If not, it would be a big pain to do it securely.

Another option is to look into encrypted filesystems such as gocryptfs
or dm-crypt.

> As far as crypto use in email, I agree, it's currently
> cumbersome. However, I am very grateful to have it even if it means I
> have to put some time into learning its proper use and some effort (of
> me and the receiver) if I want to use it.

The FSF has a guide for using GPG.  https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en/
Unfortunately, it's only for Thunderbird.  I think a lot of people use
some sort of webmail, and using GPG in webmail is a huge pain if it even
works at all.

Hubert