Quote from: Ro-Jaws on May 15, 2013, 01:14 amsorry about that, let me try again:If we assume that I am using gpg --encrypt with no modifiersIf I encrypt a message with someone else's public key, then the cipher text would reveal only the key used to encrypt it. Generally I don't encrypt messages with my own public key so I assume the cipher text would not identify me but only the recipient.Aha, got you. Yes that is correct. However more trivially based on naming information e.g. if Alice sends a PGP encrypted email to Bob, it is still possible to identify that Alice sent information to Bob i.e. pseudonymous actors can be tracked if you hack into this forum or subpoena webmail accounts. If we don't know true nyms for Alice and Bob then it's not especially useful information though. Quote from: Ro-Jaws on May 15, 2013, 01:14 amThe more I think about this the more obvious it seems but I'd still like this signed off by an expert. Apologies if my point still isn't clear, for some reason I can't articulate it at all.I'm not sure how -v works on messages I don't have the secret key for, the results for a message encrypted with the silk road key are:gpg: armor header: Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)gpg: public key is 67B7FA25gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 67B7FA25, created 2011-04-01 "Silk Road "gpg: decryption failed: secret key not availableso public key of recipient but nothing to do with mine.Don't worry, you're doing better than alright, you're thinking about the mechanics which more people need to be. And Yes. So that output above is proof that there is no link back to your public key if for example you sent a message to an email account belonging to DPR and then that account was compromised. They would have your email address, but not know your public key, important for not being linked.It is not a stupid question at all, and I'll tell you why. OSX versions of GPG and many commercial off the shelf PGP products silently encrypt to your public key as well as the recipients, even if you don't select your public key to encrypt with.This allows the convenience of being able to decrypt any messages you were about to send and you then remembered you should add something to the message, but it also has the side effect of putting down electronic tracks everywhere. Many aspects of the way GPG is built are inferior assumptions for the 21st century, it simply isn't close to being paranoid enough. The problem is that the original developers proceeded with the credo that everybody would learn PGP to use with their emails. Clearly that did not happen. We are very happy with the encryption but not the deanonymizing side effects of many aspects of GPG. Look into a thread where I posted about "local public key signing" to see a similar sorry tale. You can potentially deanonymize yourself with a single click on GPG4WIN if you're not careful.A good idea is to use the flags or gpg.conf file to anonymously encrypt to yourself (see Anonymous PGP thread in my sig). Putting hidden-encrypt-to GPGKEYIDHERE in the gpg.conf file shall do that. You can use gpg -v on a message you've encrypted to somebody else to see the result. Your keyID shall be zeroed except for the other persons public keyID. You will still be able to decrypt your own messages but you're still anonymous. If you want to go all out like Pine, then you just use append throw-key-ids to the gpg.conf file, and then everybody is always anonymous and the agents of the state only have traffic analysis information based on naming data. If you only use anonymous PGP then if the LE agents find your private key they shall still have to match it to the correct encrypted information with the correct passphrase. The downside to all this business, is that if you have > 1 private key in your keychain, and you receive an anonymous encrypted email you're going to have to type your passphrase more than once. But I think that this is a minor issue in comparison to the advantages and you can always just have separate keychains for separate nyms or identities, which is good practice anyway.Another thing to be aware of, is that if you encrypt a file, then even if you do it using anonymous PGP an adversary can still find out the *original* name of the file. I find this hilarious for a number of reasons, but mostly because it means if a corporate or government department encrypts their files using an old PGP key, you can prioritize which files to crack (because nearly all large organizations use file names according to some format). So don't call a file "top secret" and then go PGP encrypt it :D