Silk Road forums

Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: meyndrowned on July 19, 2013, 12:51 am

Title: Can someone please explain PGP and how to use it?
Post by: meyndrowned on July 19, 2013, 12:51 am
So i see people always say to use PGP and its stupid not to, but im new and i dont even know what that is let alone how to use it. if someone could explain thatd be tight, thanks yo
Title: Re: Can someone please explain PGP and how to use it?
Post by: cryngie on July 19, 2013, 02:09 am
GOOGLE
Title: Re: Can someone please explain PGP and how to use it?
Post by: gr8ape on July 19, 2013, 03:27 am
PGP is an encryption algorithm. It makes it so that a message is readable by only the intended recipient. How it actually works involves a lot of math, but the basics are simple enough. You have probably noticed public PGP keys posted on vendor pages. With a PGP program, you use that key to encrypt a message that only the key owner can read.

I use GPG4Win. It comes with a program called Kleopatra. Kleopatra seems odd when you look at it, but the secret is to right click on the icon in the taskbar to get the "Clipboard" menu. The clipboard menu lets you import keys and encrypt text based on what you have in the clipboard. (The clip board is what Windows (and other OSes) uses when you highlight text to copy and paste). You can highlight-copy a vendors PGP key and import it, and you can write a message in notepad, highlight-copy, and encrypt it to paste it to wherever you are submitting it.

As to how the encryption actually works, consider a simple example. A key of 1 would encrypt "A" to "B". A key of 3 would encrypt "A" to "D". So with

Text to encrypt: hello
Key: 34961
You would get "KIURP".

To decrypt, you would use the same key and just go backwards. Now, if someone who didn't know the key gets a message that says "KIURP", they would have no idea what it actually means. Even if they knew that it was encrypted, they still would not be able to read it.

PGP is a bit more complicated. They managed to make a system that you can publish a public key that can encrypt text but not decrypt, and a private key that can decrypt but not encrypt.

I hope this helps. There are definitely good articles on the Google machine too.
Title: Re: Can someone please explain PGP and how to use it?
Post by: Aussie bob on July 19, 2013, 03:30 am
  Hey mate, look at the top sticky in the newbie section, pgp club, best thing, AB.
Title: Re: Can someone please explain PGP and how to use it?
Post by: ChemCat on July 19, 2013, 03:37 am
^^^ ^ +1


  :)