On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 12:46:02PM -0500, Grant Olson wrote: > On 02/13/2011 03:03 AM, AgoristTeen1994 wrote: > > > > Hey, this is going to seem like stupid questions, but, I just found out > > about > > PGP, OpenPGP, and GnuPG yesterday, and I didn't create a key pair until > > about 2 hours ago, so I'm pretty unaware of how some thing work...First is, > > that using either Mozilla Thunderbird, with the OpenPGP plugin, or Claws > > Mail, to generate a key pair, it only lists, one key, my "key id" Is that my > > public key or my secret key? Or is it supposed to be both? If it's only one > > of them, how do I find the other? > > They short answer is yes, it contains everything. If you add another > user's public key to your keyring, it will contain everything minus the > secret key. > > > Also. I was wondering, in my reading on > > the internet about this sort of thing, it mentioned signing a message, say > > an e-mail, with my secret key, so the recipient knows it's from me...but I"m > > confused, since doesn't that mean, that any one I send a message to, that I > > "sign" will have my secret key and thus will be able to decrypt any messages > > they intercept? Thank you for any help, and have a nice day. > > Signing works in reverse compared to encryption. With encryption, > anyone can generate an encrypted message with your public key, but only > you can decrypt it because only you have the private key. With signing, > only you can generate a valid signature because only you have the > private key, but anyone with your public key can verify the signature. > > Signing a message to a complete stranger won't compromise your private > part of the key in any way. > > -- > -Grant > > "Look around! Can you construct some sort of rudimentary lathe?" > I read AgoristTeen1994's question a bit differently. Using your secret key to encrypt something is not at all the same thing as giving somebody your secret key. Using your key doesn't give it away.
Jim > _______________________________________________ > Gnupg-users mailing list > Gnupg-users@gnupg.org > http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
