Re: About Crypto

Am Dienstag 06 Januar 2009 18:07:44 schrieb Kishore:
> I would like to sign mail and perhaps even encrypt some of my office mail
> and so would like to learn a little. Of course, i am interested in this
> from a user point of view. I would really appreciate anyone educating me on
> this... maybe just point me to relevant web links!

well, there is at least
http://kontact.kde.org/kmail/kmail-pgpmime-howto.php
which still describes kontact from kde 3.3 but many explanations there are 
still valid, software requirements are not, of course, for newer kmail/kde 
versions.

> Clearly, kmail has support for these. so let me ask.
>
> 1) Can I use the same key that I generated for ssh access to my company git
> hosting server? I would prefer to keep one key for all official work.

not that I would know of - ssh uses different keys than gnupg (anyone correct 
me if I'm wrong)

> 2) Do I need to back up this key and keep it real safe? As far as my ssh
> access is concerned it is not fatal if I loose the key as all i need to do
> is inform colleagues and then regain access to the server with help from a
> coleague who can reset my ssh key on the server with a new one. I guess I
> will need to backup especially for encrypted mail! :)

I would recommend keeping a backup of your whole ~/.gnupg directory, once 
configured correctly - not sure if you would be able to restore your private 
keys in case you loose that.

> 3) What do the recipients of my mail need to do? I can help with colleagues
> but probably not so with external people if it requires them to perform
> something complex before they can read my mail. What would they need to do?

in short: anyone you want to send an encrypted mail to, will first have to send 
you his public (gnupg) key (or you grab it from a public keyserver).
you can then use this to encrypt the message - the recipient can then decrypt 
it using his private key.
same applies the other way round :)

> 4) How do commonly used clients like outlook and even web clients like
> gmail deal with it?

there are IMO free pgp plugins available for outlook, as for gmail, I have no 
idea.

werner