Encrypting Web Forms

[James Thompson]

On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Michael Roth wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> to use GnuPG to encrypt in a pipeline called from a webserver, CGI, or
> something else use:
> 
> 	gpg --no-default-keyring --keyring /somewhere/keyring.gpg  \
> 	    --always-trust --encrypt --recipient bla@foobar.org
> 
> However, it isn't a good idea to sign the message because you must store
> the secret key on a public maschine and/or store the passphrase somewhere
> in the script. This is highly insecure.
> 

What I did was create a private/public key combination for a mythical
user.  I then place the public key to that user in the public keyring of
the user the web server runs as.  Then when the form is submitted I
encrypt the form using the public key of that user like this (in php)

passthru("echo \" $reginfo \" | /usr/local/bin/gpg --textmode --quiet
--home /someones/home/.gnupg --batch -ear _MTE_ | mail -s \"$timestamp \"
jamest@math.ksu.edu");

Which works fine.  The person that needs to decrypt the messages keeps the
secret key in a secure(? ;-) location and uses it to decrypt.  This way I
was able to keep the private key unavailable to the web server user.

This seems like a pretty decent, secure method to me.  What do you think?

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James Thompson    138 Cardwell Hall  Manhattan, Ks   66506    785-532-0561 
Kansas State University                          Department of Mathematics
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