Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: MaoZedong on February 28, 2013, 12:42 am

Title: Advanced PGP Help Needed!
Post by: MaoZedong on February 28, 2013, 12:42 am
I posted this in the "technical support" subforum, but upon further thought, thought the "security" forum might be more appropriate... mods, feel free to edit...


Hey, Ive made around 30 successful purchases off the road, encrypting my address every time, but recently an issue has come up that I can no longer ignore.

It all started a month ago when I was considering buying from LucyDrop. I was able to import his public key into my address book (GPG Keychain Access on GPGTools for Mac) but when I tried to encrypt my address to his key, his key was not one of the options. I made successful purchases from new vendors after this so I am confident my software works fine.

Today I tried to place a sample order with DutchTrade, and once again, his key is imported into my address book, but I am not able to encrypt my address to his key.



I have more info on the problem, but need someone more technical than myself to interpret it...

To the left of each of the keys in my address book, there is a little drop down arrow that you can click to expand the info on each person's key.

There are about 15 people in my address book with working keys and 4 that don't work and they all share similar traits with regards to the drop down arrow.

The 15 working keys, when you hit the drop down arrow, display 3 lines with the "type" category being pub, uid, and sub respectively...this is the case with all the functioning keys

The 4 keys that won't work, when  you hit the drop down arrow, display only 2 lines with the "type" category being pub, and uid

This HAS to do with the keys not working because it is too perfect to be a coincidence that the keys that don't work, and only the keys that don't work, have only 2 categories, while the keys that do work all have 3....


ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!
-Mao
Title: Re: Advanced PGP Help Needed!
Post by: astor on February 28, 2013, 01:59 am
Try a nightly (or development) build of GPGTools.

If you read through posts by Nightcrawler or LouisCyphre, this issue has been addressed dozens of times, and that seems to be the solution.
Title: Re: Advanced PGP Help Needed!
Post by: MaoZedong on February 28, 2013, 03:49 am
Ahh thank you so much, I always thought I had PGP shit figured out but after today I have learned so much more! In order to download that version I have to download a new operating system I think because mine is a little bit out of date and it keeps saying its unable to download. Ill try again tomorrow.
Title: Re: Advanced PGP Help Needed!
Post by: astor on February 28, 2013, 03:59 am
Here's what Nightcrawler always posts, and I was wrong, it was originally written by Guru, not LouisCyphre.

And yeah, like it says, if you are using OS X before 10.6, the nightly build won't work.

====================

GPGTools is highly version dependent -- depending on which version of OS X you have, it may or may not work as expected.  If you have Leopard (10.5) then you're pretty much out of luck. Your only option then will be using the command-line.

If you have Snow Leopard (10.6), Lion (10.7) or Mountain Lion (10.8), the
following instructions should be sufficient to allow you to get up and
running.

Download and install GPGTools: http://nightly.gpgtools.org/GPGTools_Installer-trunk.dmg

Once you have installed GPGTools,  what you want to do is to go into
System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Services.

Scroll down until you find the following entries. Be sure to put a check mark in the boxes to activate each keyboard shortcut.

Keyboard shortcuts:
===============

OpenPGP: Decrypt Selection:             Shift-Command-D

OpenPGP: Encrypt Selection:             Shift-Command-E

OpenPGP: Import Key from Selection:     Shift-Command-I

OpenPGP: Insert My Fingerprint:         Shift-Command-F

OpenPGP: Insert My Key:                 Shift-Command-K

OpenPGP: Sign Selection:                Shift-Command-R

OpenPGP: Verify Signature of Selection: Shift-Control-V

Remember, these shortcuts only operate on highlighted or selected text.

N.B.: To properly be able to import PGP into GPGChain (via TextEdit) you need to change the default on TextEdit from .rtf to plain text. You can do that through the Format menu, or you can go through the main configuration menu, accessible by using Command-comma. Ensure the plain text radio button is selected.

Also ensure that the following are UNCHECKED in TextEdit preferences: smart quotes, smart dashes, smart links.

To select text within TextEdit, use Command-A to highlight the entire document, or use your mouse to selection the section that you want to
verify/sign/encrypt/decrypt. It is highly recommended that you use only plain-text, as opposed to Rich Text (.rtf) format. Use Command-comma to
bring up Preferences and ensure that the plain text radio button is checked.

Once your text is highlighted in TextEdit, (by pressing Comand-A) you then encrypt using Shift-Command-E. You will then be presented with a list of keys to encrypt to, that you have added to your PGP keyring:

Other Commands You May Need:
=========================

OpenPGP: Decrypt File:                   Control-Command-D

OpenPGP: Encrypt File:                   Control-Command-E

OpenPGP: Sign File:                      Control-Command-S

OpenPGP: Verify Signature of File:       Control-Command-V


Once you have setup these shortcuts, you can begin using GPG.

To encrypt a message to someone using GPG, you first need a copy of the recipient's PGP public key.

Once you have located someone's PGP public key, you should copy and paste it into TextEdit. Save the PGP key to a file; you can call the file,
import.asc (or import.txt), for example. This saved file will usually be found in the Documents folder.

Launch GPG Keychain Access from the Applications folder. click on the Import icon in the upper left hand corner. GPG Keychain Access will then
prompt you for the name of the file which contains the key to import. It will usually show you a list of files in the Documents folder. Click on the
file named import.asc (or import.txt), and click ok. The PGP public key will then be imported into your PGP keyring.

To encrypt a message to a person, the message must be contained in a TextEdit document. Use Command-A to hightlight the entire document. Then use Shift-Command-E to encrypt. GPG will pop-up a list of public keys in your PGP keyring. Each key will have a little checkbox beside it which you can check, to select that particular key. If you were encrypting a message to me, you would put a check in the box beside my PGP key (Nightcrawler@SR).

When you click on OK, the plaintext (unencrypted) message in TextEdit will be replaced with the encrypted message. You can then copy and paste the encrypted message to enter it into a form on Silk Road, or anywhere else that it needs to go.

To decrypt a message sent to you by other people, you need to copy that message to the clipboard, and paste it into a TextEdit document. Again use Command-A to highlight all the encrypted message. Then use Shift-Command-D to decrypt the message. If the message is encrypted to your PGP public key, you will be prompted to enter your passphrase. Once the correct passphrase has been entered, and you click OK, then the message will be decrypted, and the decrypted text will be placed in the TextEdit document, replacing the encrypted message that was there previously.

Nightcrawler (original tutorial written by Guru)
Title: Re: Advanced PGP Help Needed!
Post by: MaoZedong on February 28, 2013, 11:46 am
Thank you so much!!!! A lot of info was posted that I was already familiar with, but after running software update overnight, and then downloading the nightly build... everything works PERFECT!

These forums are such a wonderful and valuable source of information! :)

-Mao
Title: Re: Advanced PGP Help Needed!
Post by: tiger1157 on March 12, 2013, 05:13 pm
Having the same problem with DT's public key, so I'm commenting to save this thread.   A lot of good information in here that I'm hoping will also resolve my issues!
Title: Re: Advanced PGP Help Needed!
Post by: tiger1157 on March 12, 2013, 10:05 pm
I rebooted and installed the latest nightly build of GPG Keychain Access, yet DT's public key is not showing up in the "Choose Recipients" list, but still showing up in my keychain list.  Any ideas?  Thanks for the help!