[Announce] GnuPG 2.1.17 released

Werner Koch wk at gnupg.org
Tue Dec 20 12:29:35 CET 2016


Hello!

Today marks the 19th anniversary of GnuPG and we are pleased to announce
the availability of a new release: GnuPG 2.1.17.  See below for a list
of new features and bug fixes.


About GnuPG
=============

The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is a complete and free implementation
of the OpenPGP standard which is commonly abbreviated as PGP.

GnuPG allows to encrypt and sign data and communication, features a
versatile key management system as well as access modules for public key
directories.  GnuPG itself is a command line tool with features for easy
integration with other applications.  A wealth of frontend applications
and libraries making use of GnuPG are available.  Since version 2 GnuPG
provides support for S/MIME and Secure Shell in addition to OpenPGP.

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.

Three different branches of GnuPG are actively maintained:

- GnuPG "modern" (2.1) comes with the latest features and is suggested
  for most users.  This announcement is about this branch.

- GnuPG "stable" (2.0) is the currently mostly used branch which will be
  maintain until 2017-12-31.

- GnuPG "classic" (1.4) is a simplified version of GnuPG, required on
  very old platforms or to decrypt data created with PGP-2 keys.

You may not install "modern" (2.1) and "stable" (2.0) at the same time.
However, it is possible to install "classic" (1.4) along with any of the
other versions.


Noteworthy changes in version 2.1.17
====================================

 * gpg: By default new keys expire after 2 years.

 * gpg: New command --quick-set-expire to conveniently change the
   expiration date of keys.

 * gpg: Option and command names have been changed for easier
   comprehension.  The old names are still available as aliases.

 * gpg: Improved the TOFU trust model.

 * gpg: New option --default-new-key-algo.

 * scd: Support OpenPGP card V3 for RSA.

 * dirmngr: Support for the ADNS library has been removed.  Instead
   William Ahern's Libdns is now source included and used on all
   platforms.  This enables Tor support on all platforms.  The new
   option --standard-resolver can be used to disable this code at
   runtime.  In case of build problems the new configure option
   --disable-libdns can be used to build without Libdns.

 * dirmngr: Lazily launch ldap reaper thread.

 * tools: New options --check and --status-fd for gpg-wks-client.

 * The UTF-8 byte order mark is now skipped when reading conf files.

 * Fixed many bugs and regressions.

 * Major improvements to the test suite.  For example it is possible
   to run the external test suite of GPGME.

A detailed description of the changes found in this 2.1 branch can be
found at <https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html>.


Getting the Software
====================

Please follow the instructions found at <https://gnupg.org/download/> or
read on:

GnuPG 2.1.17 may be downloaded from one of the GnuPG mirror sites or
direct from its primary FTP server.  The list of mirrors can be found at
<https://gnupg.org/download/mirrors.html>.  Note that GnuPG is not
available at ftp.gnu.org.

The GnuPG source code compressed using BZIP2 and its OpenPGP signature
are available here:

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2  (5830k)
 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2.sig
or here:
 https://gnupg.org/ftp/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2
 https://gnupg.org/ftp/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2.sig

An installer for Windows without any graphical frontend except for a
very minimal Pinentry tool is available here:

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.17_20161220.exe  (3665k)
 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.17_20161220.exe.sig
or here
 https://gnupg.org/ftp/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.17_20161220.exe
 https://gnupg.org/ftp/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32-2.1.17_20161220.exe.sig

The source used to build the Windows installer can be found in the same
directory with a ".tar.xz" suffix.  This Windows installer comes with
TOFU support, translations, and support for Tor; it is still missing
HKPS and Web Key Directory support, though.


Checking the Integrity
======================

In order to check that the version of GnuPG which you are going to
install is an original and unmodified one, you can do it in one of
the following ways:

 * If you already have a version of GnuPG installed, you can simply
   verify the supplied signature.  For example to verify the signature
   of the file gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2 you would use this command:

     gpg --verify gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2.sig gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2

   This checks whether the signature file matches the source file.
   You should see a message indicating that the signature is good and
   made by one or more of the release signing keys.  Make sure that
   this is a valid key, either by matching the shown fingerprint
   against a trustworthy list of valid release signing keys or by
   checking that the key has been signed by trustworthy other keys.
   See the end of this mail for information on the signing keys.

 * If you are not able to use an existing version of GnuPG, you have
   to verify the SHA-1 checksum.  On Unix systems the command to do
   this is either "sha1sum" or "shasum".  Assuming you downloaded the
   file gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2, you run the command like this:

     sha1sum gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2

   and check that the output matches the next line:

d83ab893faab35f37ace772ca29b939e6a5aa6a7  gnupg-2.1.17.tar.bz2
a95758912ed5354235ff9947a3c402108d5ec67e  gnupg-w32-2.1.17_20161220.exe
a358666de565a1f86ba9cd6bc8700a8224ea1078  gnupg-w32-2.1.17_20161220.tar.xz


Internationalization
====================

This version of GnuPG has support for 26 languages with Chinese, Czech,
French, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, and Ukrainian being almost
completely translated.  Due to expected changes in forthcoming releases
some strings pertaining to the TOFU code are not yet translated.


Documentation
=============

If you used GnuPG in the past you should read the description of
changes and new features at doc/whats-new-in-2.1.txt or online at

  https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html

The file gnupg.info has the complete user manual of the system.
Separate man pages are included as well but they have not all the
details available as are the manual.  It is also possible to read the
complete manual online in HTML format at

  https://gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/

or in Portable Document Format at

  https://gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg.pdf .

The chapters on gpg-agent, gpg and gpgsm include information on how
to set up the whole thing.  You may also want search the GnuPG mailing
list archives or ask on the gnupg-users mailing lists for advise on
how to solve problems.  Many of the new features are around for
several years and thus enough public knowledge is already available.

You may also want to follow our postings at <https://gnupg.org/blob/>
and <https://twitter.com/gnupg>.


Support
========

Please consult the archive of the gnupg-users mailing list before
reporting a bug <https://gnupg.org/documentation/mailing-lists.html>.
We suggest to send bug reports for a new release to this list in favor
of filing a bug at <https://bugs.gnupg.org>.  If you need commercial
support check out <https://gnupg.org/service.html>.

If you are a developer and you need a certain feature for your project,
please do not hesitate to bring it to the gnupg-devel mailing list for
discussion.

Maintenance and development of GnuPG is mostly financed by donations.
The GnuPG project employs 3 full-time developers, one part-timer, and
one contractor.  They all work exclusivly on GnuPG and closely related
software like Libgcrypt, GPGME, and GPA.  Please consider to donate via:

                  https://gnupg.org/donate/


Thanks
======

We have to thank all the people who helped with this release, be it
testing, coding, translating, suggesting, auditing, administering the
servers, spreading the word, answering questions on the mailing
lists, and donating money.


The GnuPG hackers,

   Andre, dkg, gniibe, Justus, Neal, and Werner


p.s.
This is an announcement only mailing list.  Please send replies only to
the gnupg-users'at'gnupg.org mailing list.

p.p.s
List of Release Signing Keys:

To guarantee that a downloaded GnuPG version has not been tampered by
malicious entities we provide signature files for all tarballs and
binary versions.  The keys are also signed by the long term keys of
their respective owners.  Current releases are signed by one or more
of these four keys:

  2048R/4F25E3B6 2011-01-12 [expires: 2019-12-31]
  Key fingerprint = D869 2123 C406 5DEA 5E0F  3AB5 249B 39D2 4F25 E3B6
  Werner Koch (dist sig)

  rsa2048/E0856959 2014-10-29 [expires: 2019-12-31]
  Key fingerprint = 46CC 7308 65BB 5C78 EBAB  ADCF 0437 6F3E E085 6959
  David Shaw (GnuPG Release Signing Key) <dshaw 'at' jabberwocky.com>

  rsa2048/33BD3F06 2014-10-29 [expires: 2020-10-30]
  Key fingerprint = 031E C253 6E58 0D8E A286  A9F2 2071 B08A 33BD 3F06
  NIIBE Yutaka (GnuPG Release Key) <gniibe 'at' fsij.org>

  rsa2048/7EFD60D9 2014-10-19 [expires: 2020-12-31]
  Key fingerprint = D238 EA65 D64C 67ED 4C30  73F2 8A86 1B1C 7EFD 60D9
  Werner Koch (Release Signing Key)

You may retrieve these keys from a keyserver using this command

  gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys  \
                  249B39D24F25E3B6 04376F3EE0856959 \
                  2071B08A33BD3F06 8A861B1C7EFD60D9

The keys are also available at https://gnupg.org/signature_key.html and
in any recently released GnuPG tarball in the file g10/distsigkey.gpg .
Note that this mail has been signed by a different key.

--
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.
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