Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: 1200MICROGRAMS on November 27, 2012, 09:13 am
-
Someone please help me with this.
-
Someone please help me with this.
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 the latest nightly build of 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-, 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 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.
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 (original author)
-
Impressive post above, didn't read it but i feel like anything that big has got to be helpful lol. Just wanted to chime in and say I had an impossible time trying to get it to work and i had to upgrade my os. after that it was easy as cake.
-
Oh man, thank you thank you thank you so much for the reply above. Most helpful forum reply post I have ever seen.
-
+1 on the most helpful post. Thanks to nightcrawler for helping me. I am still not confident I have it right, but at least its working
when DECODING...how does the keychain know which key to use? is it a case of "if its in there on any of the keys, it will use it?"
-
I think the recipients are encoded in the encrypted message itself, so it will know which secret key to use... if you don't have a secret key for the message it just tells you it failed.
-
THX for the detailed instructions. I was have problems myself trying to use PGP on a Mac. all is well now.