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Discussion => Security => Topic started by: turningjapanese on December 14, 2012, 04:43 am

Title: Hmmmm- Where is my Public Key??? ^.^
Post by: turningjapanese on December 14, 2012, 04:43 am

My keys say "sec, uid, sub". WHen I clicked " Show secret Keys Only" All 3 of them were still visable...

Whaddup? Tried to figure it out myself, and searched...But I'm getting zzzZzzZYyy : )

I;m afraid that I'm going to export my public key- Well I'm sure not going to try until I figure this out... or I get some help from this Joyous community ; ) Thanks You 

Title: Re: Hmmmm- Where is my Public Key??? ^.^
Post by: turningjapanese on December 14, 2012, 02:47 pm

17 Views, any takers?  :) Could someone open up their GPG service and tell me what their key/keys are labeled as? Twould be Much appreciated.

Title: Re: Hmmmm- Where is my Public Key??? ^.^
Post by: SelfSovereignty on December 14, 2012, 03:02 pm

So, I use the command line utility.  These will both list all public keys matching the word(s) you give it (don't give it a search term and it lists them all):

Code: [Select]

gpg -k [words]
gpg --list-keys [words]

These will list all private keys matching words:

Code: [Select]

gpg -K [words]
gpg --list-secret-keys [words]

To export your own public key:

Code: [Select]

gpg --export -a YourID

(replace YourID with your ID)

To pipe that to a file:

Code: [Select]

gpg --export -a YourID > mypublickey.asc

Believe it or not, it doesn't actually matter which key you use for the public & private keys.  As long as you keep them straight (as in if you use the public one as the private key, you have to always use that one for the private key -- you can't just switch at random).

It's a math thing.  I haven't verified it, but that's what I read, and I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Enjoy. :)

Title: Re: Hmmmm- Where is my Public Key??? ^.^
Post by: turningjapanese on December 14, 2012, 03:11 pm

Thanks! is the command line utility the same as terminal? all offense to me- This isn't simple enough for me : ( I SO appreciate you giving it a shot- I still don't feel comfortable exporting one key when I don't know where the other is. DO I just pic one of the subkeys like "uid" and then use "Sec" as secret?

Title: Re: Hmmmm- Where is my Public Key??? ^.^
Post by: turningjapanese on December 14, 2012, 03:13 pm

OK, I will try this when I'm at the Other comp far away. do i put those commands in word for word/symbol? Very new to computers. Thx!

Title: Re: Hmmmm- Where is my Public Key??? ^.^
Post by: SelfSovereignty on December 14, 2012, 03:51 pm

Well, replace the stuff with sharp brackets around it with the search term (as in    <SEARCHTERM>).  For example, for you:

Code: [Select]

gpg --export -a turningjapanese > turningjapanese-publickey.asc

That's assuming your PGP ID is the same as your forum name, of course.  Note that the other commands aren't really necessary.  I just gave them to you because you were asking about where your public & private keys are.

They're in a file in your "$HOME/.gnupg" directory, by the way.  "$HOME" is a Linux variable that will be replaced with your user account's "home" directory (basically like "C:\Users\MyUserName" on Windows 7).

Copy & paste the exact command above, and you can give out your public key to whoever you want.  But don't forget, the only reason to need a public key is so that people can encrypt things TO YOU USING IT.  If you want to encrypt things TO OTHERS, your use THEIR PUBLIC KEY to do that -- then only their private key can decrypt it.

Good luck man :)

Title: Re: Hmmmm- Where is my Public Key??? ^.^
Post by: tetrizkube on December 15, 2012, 02:28 am

Hey there, to find my public key I opened a new window in Text Edit, right clicked, and went to insert my key.