Quote from: pestlepete on January 09, 2013, 02:44 am@quale: You don't need to encrypt to yourself, except when you want to check to make sure the right data got encrypted; once you're comfortable that you're doing the process correctly, you only need to select the vendor's key when encrypting (this will save you a tiny amount of time in the long run). Note: I'm not saying you're making a mistake, just taking an extra step.@thread:How about, when sharing your public key, also share the first 18 ASCII characters of ciphers addressed to you? It appears to me that the first 18 characters are always the same for a given recipient (I have checked with a few of my keys and it seems to always be 18). I believe this first portion of data would just be your "name" and email or key fingerprint, but I'm not sure (any experts want to weigh in?). I can't think of any security holes with this method (anyone who gets your key can figure out your first 18 immediately), and this makes it so people sending you messages can quickly self-test their encryption without having to wait for a reply from you.Example: for the test pair Testy Teste (teste@tes.ty), the first 18 characters are always "hIwDfNaI6o1RN6sBA/". This means that when someone encrypts a message for Testy, all they have to do is check that those first 18 characters match up, and they'll at least know they got the recipient correct (thus avoiding "error: unknown recipient", which can sometimes delay transactions by a full day or more).Therefore, at the end of Testy's profile, he would write something like:"Please encrypt all sensitive messages, including shipping address, using my PGP key below:First18: hIwDfNaI6o1RN6sBA/(when encrypting messages to me, please make sure the first 18 characters match above before sending)-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (MingW32)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=iAq5-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----"(I included the key so you can try it yourself - or, just try on one of your own keys)(note: this is a 1024 key for compactness, but it still seems to be 18 characters for longer algorithms like 3072)To the more experienced SR/PGP users - if you can think of any reason why this is insecure or won't work (e.g. perhaps the first 18 chars are not sufficiently specific) please share, or if you think this warrants a new thread, let me know and I'll make one. Or, if you like this idea and own one of the PGP tutorial threads, copy and paste at will! PeaceIf you want to verify which key was used to encrypt an encrypted message, then try decrypting it -- PGP/GPG will inform you which key-id was used to encrypt a message, e.g.: -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----hIwDfNaI6o1RN6sBBACckfLPO848eV+wbbv+lMyKwOyM9DFZpbUCFzNRTLtE/q9/0JLDIJGcBoacGP3KqMAIA+FU6VkcvsjBlx4630RMrxhAx+BllPK1uUC/bx0jBMAYVlRT2I5bho9V68DD0FTqLIMgAsROvToApPKj+fCVRPETEX6wAPoqEsNtU547dNJcAc/xkQtl90dEI2V7asx9NHIywR2VuNWzxH8KaJOQlZpMwy8T3lFELdmm9wI0/BS1yUATvCTzuLb3IHrjb2+tpyMiSYbuKGtU0r5OYAlp8JGV4TN/eoHwJ4qJmqY==XEd0-----END PGP MESSAGE-----gpg --decrypt decrypt_testgpg: public key is 8D5137ABgpg: using subkey 8D5137AB instead of primary key D8EFEE5Egpg: encrypted with 1024-bit RSA key, ID 8D5137AB, created 2013-01-09   "Testy Teste <teste@tes.ty>"gpg: decryption failed: secret key not availableNightcrawler <Nightcrawler@SR>PGP-Key: 4096R/BBF7433B 2012-09-22Key fingerprint = D870 C6AC CC6E 46B0 E0C7 3955 B8F1 D88E BBF7 433Bhttp://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=174.msg633090#msg633090