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How to use PGP key

Mr. Rambler - April 18th, 2020

There are 3 main things; PGP owned by a company, OpenPGP, and GPG. Functionally, they behave nearly identical from my understanding. I'll use the term PGP in this post.

It is super easy to use. I'll start with what PGP is or does not:

• An email client
• An email provider
• Gives you an email
• Require a valid email to encrypt/decrypt

So, it does NOT do those things. What does it do? It allows for the encryption of text/files. These instructions should work universally.

One might get prompted to create a key-pair right off the bat, which is fine; however, if one is a freedom fighter, on the run from a global government or something 👽, one should ponder if they should put their real information.

• Retrieve a public key (like my PGP key)^[1]
• Use PGP program to import it
• Write a message and encrypt the message with the key you just imported
• Strongly consider if one's own public key should be added to the message: how will the recipiant even have the sender's public key? (They won't. I guess maybe if one publish a key on a key server the recipiant could retrieve it from there.)
• My current version of Kleopatra has a tab called notepad. I can write a message and then click on 'Sign/Encrypt notepad'.
• One should make sure that they have the recipient's key and that they encrypted FOR the recipient. One can encrypt for himself as well, but be certain that the recipient is able to decrypt.
• Get on the email and send it to the person that it was encrypted for^[2]

"Oh no! How do I get my public key?" Generally speaking, there is an export option somewhere. Don't export the secret key. Make sure the export file begins and ends with 'PUBLIC KEY'. Make sure a key-pair has been created first though.

If one desires, one can send a 'test' message to me. Be sure to include: Your public key so I can send you a message back. I will assume your perferred email address is the one on the public key unless you tell me otherwise.