GnuPG
The GNU Privacy Guard
GnuPG is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880 (also known as PGP). GnuPG allows to encrypt and sign your data and communication, features a versatile key management system as well as access modules for all kinds of public key directories. GnuPG, also known as GPG, is a command line tool with features for easy integration with other applications. A wealth of frontend applications and libraries are available. Version 2 of GnuPG also provides support for S/MIME and Secure Shell (ssh).
GnuPG is Free Software (meaning that it respects your freedom). It can be freely used, modified and distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License .
Project Gpg4win provides a Windows version of GnuPG stable. It is nicely integrated into an installer and features several frontends as well as English and German manuals.
Reconquer your privacy
Even if you have nothing to hide, using encryption helps protect the privacy of people you communicate with, and makes life difficult for bulk surveillance systems. If you do have something important to hide, you are in good company; GnuPG is one of the tools that Edward Snowden used to uncover his secrets about the NSA.
Please visit the Email Self-Defense site to learn how and why you should use GnuPG for your electronic communication. If you need printed leaflets check out FSFE’s GnuPG leaflet.
more information on http://www.gnupg.org/ site
GnuPG installation:
Newest version you can always download form http://www.gnupg.org site
Installation on Unix (from sources) should not be a problem, especially that those who do that way usually reads documentation before installation, I compiled that way (Solaris 2.6, gcc v.3.2.1):
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/gnupg-VER \
–mandir=/usr/local/man –infodir=/usr/local/info \
–with-ldap –with-gnu-ld
make
make check
later /bin/su and make install
This will install GnuPG in directory
/usr/local/gnupg-VER, after that I make a symbolic link:
ln -s /usr/local/gnupg-VER /usr/local/gnupg
and I add proper paths to PATH or I make a symbolic links:
ln -s /usr/local/gnupg/bin/gpg* /usr/local/bin/
Maybe this looks weird, but I can assure that this is premeditated action, which simplifies me updates of software.
OK. This should work, you can check GnuPG version:
gpg --version
gpg (GnuPG) 1.2.2
Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions. See the file COPYING for details.
Home: ~/.gnupg
Algoritms:
Pubkey: RSA, RSA-E, RSA-S, ELG-E, DSA, ELG
Cipher: 3DES, CAST5, BLOWFISH, AES, AES192, AES256, TWOFISH
Hash: MD5, SHA1, RIPEMD160, SHA256
Compression: Uncompressed, ZIP, ZLIB
When you find this warning in first line:
Warning: using insecure memory!
You can do two things:
chmod u+s /usr/local/gnupg/bin/gpg
or put following line in config of gpg:
‘no-secmem-warning’
echo "no-secmem-warning" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf
I choose this second option.
Installation under Windows – you need to simply download and unpack binaries in directory (default C:\GnuPG).
Now you need to add entries to registry, (you can use file gnupg-w32.reg).
If you change default installation directory, then you need to modify pathes in registry of course.
I will not write about key generation and ideology, because there is many pages about it, you can find it by yourself 🙂
