Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: malacath on October 22, 2012, 02:23 am

Title: How do I encrypt a simple message with a public PGP key?
Post by: malacath on October 22, 2012, 02:23 am
Okay, I have read countless posts here, maybe I am searching wrong, but I cannot find out how to encrypt a message (my address to give to a vendor) and post it to the address box with GPG installed on my mac.

I can create my own key, import the vendor public key, an encrypt text files with those keys, but I can figure out how to simply encrypt a message with the vendors public key and then copy and paste that message to the SR order form.

All the tutorials I read mention the "clipboard" but my program "GPG Keychain Access" does not have a clipboard option, this is the mac version by the way.

Can someone please tell me how to do this or like me to the proper post if I am missing it? I really want to make my first order I already set up a PO box with fake documents and I'm going to CVS tomorrow to pay for the bitcoins.
Title: Re: How do I encrypt a simple message with a public PGP key?
Post by: Nightcrawler on October 22, 2012, 10:07 am
Okay, I have read countless posts here, maybe I am searching wrong, but I cannot find out how to encrypt a message (my address to give to a vendor) and post it to the address box with GPG installed on my mac.

I can create my own key, import the vendor public key, an encrypt text files with those keys, but I can figure out how to simply encrypt a message with the vendors public key and then copy and paste that message to the SR order form.

All the tutorials I read mention the "clipboard" but my program "GPG Keychain Access" does not have a clipboard option, this is the mac version by the way.

Can someone please tell me how to do this or like me to the proper post if I am missing it? I really want to make my first order I already set up a PO box with fake documents and I'm going to CVS tomorrow to pay for the bitcoins.

At the risk of being harsh, some of us are getting a little tired of answering the same questions over and over and over again. This question has been answered at least 25 times in the last 3 months alone.  Do a search for Mac GPG and you will get in excess of 375 hits.

Coming on here, spending a few minutes to an hour or two on the Forum, and then wailing for help, expecting to be spoon-fed just doesn't cut it -- it's no way to make a good first impression.  You've been registered on the Forum for what, a few hours?  I remember reading posts made by people on here who stated that they lurked on here for a month -- or even two -- learning everything they could, prior to making their first purchase.

Security is both a process, as well as a mind-set. Acquiring that security-oriented mind-set is the single most important thing you could ever do to remain safe and secure.  Safety and security only comes about through acquiring knowledge and understanding, and acquiring that knowledge, and assimilating it so that you begin understanding, TAKES TIME -- time that many newbies (including yourself) appear to be unwilling to invest.  None of you have got the time,  you're really desperate to make your first orders.

I've lost count of how many similar posts I've seen of late, where people are so desperate to get their drugs, that they are willing to cut corners, or do anything to speed up the process. Frankly, this reminds me of nothing so much as junkie behavior.  An influx of clueless, desperate junkies, unwilling to take the time to learn how to do things properly is the last thing Silk Road needs. In fact, I believe that this may, in fact, lead to its eventual demise.
Title: Re: How do I encrypt a simple message with a public PGP key?
Post by: malacath on October 22, 2012, 09:34 pm
I'm not trying to cut corners, if I was trying to cut corners I would not be asking this question in the first place. I'm trying to do everything right but I'm having trouble. Also, I've been reading for more than a few hours, I joined the forums recently so I could post but I've been reading them for the past 2 weeks.

All the tutorials I looked at didn't help. When I try highlighting text, I don't get the services option. I get it if i right click a file and I can encrypt and decrypt that just fine but it doesn't work on text. I even uninstalled and reinstalled the gpg tools package. I can  encrypt an entire text file, but again highlighting the text and right clicking does not give me the services menu. I followed the mac tutorial exactly and read it more than once, I'm having a specific problem that has not been answered.
Title: Re: How do I encrypt a simple message with a public PGP key?
Post by: malacath on October 22, 2012, 09:39 pm
UPDATE:

I just got it to work on my other mac, I'm trying to figure out what is different on the one that its not working on. If anyone else is having a similar problem, check back here for updates. The OS versions are all the same and I set both up according to this tutorial:
http://xfq5l5p4g3eyrct7.onion/view.php?image=0570e74e6b1acd8591230c7754258c9e.png
http://xfq5l5p4g3eyrct7.onion/view.php?image=f15048662bff555d9fa10066da8afa2b.png
http://xfq5l5p4g3eyrct7.onion/view.php?image=edcf00daf5392801fd7dd889f92094a9.png
http://xfq5l5p4g3eyrct7.onion/view.php?image=a44930bd14200ca27ac3f2a5caab16db.png
http://xfq5l5p4g3eyrct7.onion/view.php?image=be4cff90a80afdea2c7537f5ef9cadbb.png

But it only works on one of the two macs I have.
Title: Re: How do I encrypt a simple message with a public PGP key?
Post by: Nightcrawler on October 22, 2012, 10:30 pm
I'm not trying to cut corners, if I was trying to cut corners I would not be asking this question in the first place. I'm trying to do everything right but I'm having trouble. Also, I've been reading for more than a few hours, I joined the forums recently so I could post but I've been reading them for the past 2 weeks.

Ok, fair enough. sorry for poppin' off at ya.

All the tutorials I looked at didn't help. When I try highlighting text, I don't get the services option. I get it if i right click a file and I can encrypt and decrypt that just fine but it doesn't work on text. I even uninstalled and reinstalled the gpg tools package. I can  encrypt an entire text file, but again highlighting the text and right clicking does not give me the services menu. I followed the mac tutorial exactly and read it more than once, I'm having a specific problem that has not been answered.

You don't go through services, but you use the shortcut keys assigned to GPG under keyboard shortcuts.  If the following instructions, don't work at first, try install the GPGTools-installer nightly build from: https://nightly.gpgtools.org/

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.

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-, to bring up Preferences and ensure that the plain text radio button is checked.

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

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 hve added to your PGP kryring


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

Naturally, you can change any of these shortcuts to ones of your own choosing, if you wish.


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. Many people put a reference to where their PGP public key may be located in their .sig, for example:

Guru <Guru@SR>
PGP Key: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=174.msg234832#msg234832
PGP Key: http://qtt2yl5jocgrk7nu.onion/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x523FCBEE886855CA
PGP Key Fingerprint: ADBE 8D80 5F5C 9CBA 9BDB 0F05 523F CBEE 8868 55CA

Once you have located someone's PGP public key, you should copy and paste it into TextEdit. Save the file to a file; you can file the file, import.asc, 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, 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 (Guru@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.

Guru