[Discuss] Does this work at all?

[Andrew Berg]

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Hash: RIPEMD160
 
Will McCown wrote:
> I tried the dialog for selecting a particular key to use for
> encryption, and when I open that I get a blank list.
To encrypt an email, you'll need the recipient's public key, and it
needs to imported. You can have mine (pasted below). Feel free to
encrypt an email to me.
> Looking at the GPG Console I see:
>> enigmail> C:\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG\pub\gpg.exe --charset utf8
>> --batch --no-tt y --status-fd 2 --with-fingerprint
>> --fixed-list-mode --with-colons --list-secret -keys gpg: error
>> reading key: secret key not available
>
> Sure enough cut and pasting this command into a cmd window get the
>  same exact error.  After a fair amount of trial and error
> (starting with trying just "gpg --list-keys" which worked) I
> determined that deleting the two options "--charset utf8" and
> "--status-fd 2" from the command were what was needed to get it to
> work.  I can see no rational reason why either of those options
> would effect gpg's ability to find the key files, but that seems to
> be what is happening.
Unless specifically overridden, GPG will look in %appdata%\gnupg for
pubring.gpg (public keys) and secring.gpg (private keys). If they
don't exist, GPG will create them. Provided you're not overriding the
homedir while using Enigmail, any private key you import (newly
created keys are automatically imported) via Enigmail will be in
%appdata%\gnupg\secring.gpg.

I think the problem here is that you don't quite understand the
concepts. First, you'll need to create a key pair for yourself. With
TB/Enigmail, select the menu item "OpenPGP" and choose "Key
Management". From that window, select "Generate" -> "New Key Pair".
- From there, follow the instructions, and you'll have your own key
pair. The private key will go to secring.gpg, and the public key will
go to pubring.gpg (the key management window will display both private
and public keys). As the terms imply, the private key is kept private.
Do not share that key with anyone. The public key however, is needed
in order to to encrypt a message to you, which means that if you want
to receive encrypted messages from someone, you have to give that
person your public key. You can make you public key easily available
to anyone by uploading to a keyserver. Even if I didn't include my key
in this message, it is available on a giant keyserver network. The
docs on the Enigmail site lays out all this stuff in detail, so you
should start there. If you still have any questions, I wouldn't mind
answering them.

- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)

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jvQDWaFOYGaO3fXAuwmPJjkf4eu1VLdTfw==
=tM7x
- -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Clicking the Decrypt button will prompt to import this key into your
key ring. Copying it to the clipboard and going to Key Management ->
Edit -> Import Keys from Clipboard will import it as well.

- --
Windows NT 5.1.2600 | Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 | Enigmail 0.95.0 | GPG 1.4.7
Key ID: 0x60A78FCB - available on major keyservers and upon request
Fingerprint: 4A84 CAE2 A0D3 2AEB 71F6 07FD F88E 0340 60A7 8FCB
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
 
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=/Vnp
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