On Jun 20, 2012, at 1:10 PM, John wrote: > Hello. > > When someone uses my public key to encrypt a message to me, what prevents > them from trying to use an encryption algorithm of his choice. In other > words, does the public key itself limit the options available to the person > sending the message? Thanks.
Yes, it does. The public key contains a list of all algorithms that you can (or are willing to) accept (you can see your own list with --edit-key and the "showpref" command). By default, the sending GPG consults this list when picking an algorithm to ensure it does not pick one that you can't/won't handle. However, note that the sender (if they choose to), can override this default and pick whatever they like. This is not recommended as it can result in a message that you, the recipient, can't read, but senders do have that power. David _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
