Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: acidrock on May 29, 2012, 06:11 am

Title: Increase anonymity by removing PGP metadata
Post by: acidrock on May 29, 2012, 06:11 am
I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I see a lot of people posting their public keys with metadata like the "Version" and "Comment" lines. This reduces our anonymity, especially for people who use obscure programs. I suggest we make a habit of removing the metadata, which is easy to do. For gpg and related programs, the flag is --no-emit-version.  Like this

gpg --export --armor --no-emit-version acidrock@tormail.org

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
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AhsDBgsJCAcDAgYVCAIJCgsEFgIDAQIeAQIXgAAKCRDnUxBQ5nsE0oscD/9LDnou
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Dz/VFpeQK8Itdnez3HX95iOopzb9nUKi/2jmUROIGuEeLx88U62I4ONokZcwku8R
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Q47V6A7TqaCJZA+LquH0zdX3qKZC+1nCaKdv1r5TaW1aDY8+V8qUArVV5OmSGjb/
yT9wNmOTQjlCkLNn/VuPHqFAVPOAWAc9hL390IrdxHXdjhpUYBQ22lfOfgwdMrAC
bVq/DvBP/4V/QieuYdFLm2heLdUZvcD53odSJbAyzp2ulOVI6kTEsKPEW0eztrac
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hwLpcGhSKDNJvV97+aTTSQdmvDKOnT6mSJlUrIVW3rlxh41syhqsaAKLePAJ0HGf
y4YwJWXn82PxnOWvJE70cZvotrZuZC0AEQEAAYkCHwQYAQIACQUCT8EXBAIbDAAK
CRDnUxBQ5nsE0quJD/9uaQiUfFWg0aNNINmHrQQFjZgCMK5cAxdJyK94Xf/5fepp
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QsYO2xjw2juLMZMB/OlFik/KX6X5RIlLfWzQyNPyxB1mYWTX/TjHuWun9fHsBxkI
DQyC5J5u3/zUc1uQxVXPwXyHRwDd71M2FiNzvVojvtc4A5oak0foTxYU8QLcUQJA
mr5E/+ljbhJi0B+PTbX+EO7UjjMQ5IK+39+I6ISVNrD03eWHPLPN0tT7muv9H6g5
6W45z+rfM0mLH4+mkFyPq4w2uBJ17h8m6w6jgCt0IMDm5WxPdmIyTlF0CghNkuqJ
y6JF/vgqG6KA7JkUCNFbTuBdKLdcRuuJy3+BusFMK3WhZ1juA0GqxHpzGcptCzrw
hr41EmsLYsUkuGBSMRmEYfLVy1NMzlfSPc7erdRrWcwEzfqtZ9HzvObj++OPJenj
iFm+YeR1cGYNa/HF7sI5AttEvOdDBXbLibgEgcm5EC/58p9E+fjnuSOJ/PLqOzgB
SeZjl/SMPhx5Lmj/Yywhd8BmPoFo902/ByUSd2ZGV6mxAUwnA6VeZAkySRXqFw==
=y3Gj
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----


Notice how the version / comment lines are missing? You can add that to your public keys and it works just fine.

This flag also works for encryption. You can add it to Enigmail's "Additional parameters for OpenPGP" so it can transparently encrypt messages without the metadata (Enigmail has a nasty habit of advertising itself in the Comment line, which can also be disabled).

Alternatively, you can remove the metadata lines manually.