On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:52:29AM -0500, Melikamp The Medley wrote: > Sorry if you get two of these, I screwed up while subscribing > to the list. > > I have a question relating to the symmetric encryption. If I do > > gpg -c foo-file > > and enter a passphrase, I get an encrypted foo-file.gpg. > Is there a way to tell that it is an encrypted file just by > looking at the contents? I mean, is there a reliable way to > tell that something is _not_ an encrypted file?
Depends on what you mean by "reliable"... I'm sure if you read RFC-4880, you could work out a byte pattern that would give a very good indication, for most practical purposes. However, it would probably be possible for someone to generate a file artificially in a deliberate attempt to fool the filetype detection mechanism. So, it's not "reliable" because it can be fooled intentionally, but for most likely scenarii (i.e. where people aren't deliberately trying to fool it), it would work. If you're running on UNIX (particularly Linux), look at 'man file'. -- David Smith | Tel: +44 (0)1454 462380 Home: +44 (0)1454 616963 STMicroelectronics | Fax: +44 (0)1454 462305 Mobile: +44 (0)7932 642724 1000 Aztec West | TINA: 065 2380 GPG Key: 0xF13192F2 Almondsbury | Work Email: dave.sm...@st.com BRISTOL, BS32 4SQ | Home Email: david.sm...@ds-electronics.co.uk _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
