PGP 7.0.3 / GPG 1.0.6 compatibility. (Liam Farr)

[Leigh S. Jones]

I can probably help you, but I cannot find your public key on the
keyservers to see what key preferences are listed.  I checked
for Liam Farr and for nz_liam@yahoo.co.uk.

I've been able to overcome all of the interoperability problems
with PGP and gpg (various implementations) including moving
keys back and forth. In general the most frequently experienced
interoperability problems are:

1) Public key has IDEA listed as preferred encryption method
but GnuPG does not have IDEA capability (for keys created on
PGP and exported to GnuPG) resulting in encryption to IDEA
2) Trouble with decryption of password encrypted secret key.

With regard to #1, your top choices would include editing the
key preferences using GnuPG v1.0.7 or later.  This allows you
to put other encryption algorithms ahead of IDEA on the list.
The choice of AES is a very good one.

But since you are using GnuPG 1.0.6, another option would
be to add the IDEA algorithm capability.  This would require
that you add a file "idea.dll" on the directory "c:\lib\gnupg"
and add one line in your options file that loads the dll.

With regard to #2, let me make sure I understand:

Can I assume that your key pair was created on PGP and
exported, then imported to the gpg keyring?  Moving keys
the other way has a whole different set of obstacles.

It's possible that your problem is that you didn't successfully
import the secret key to your GnuPG keyring file.  One big
requirement that is sometimes overlooked by new users of
GnuPG is that a key pair (public and secret key) that is
imported using a command such as:

gpg --import [filename]

results in only the public key being imported.  To import
both halves of the key pair, you need to do this:

gpg --allow-secret-key-import --import [filename]

I don't suggest leaving important tasks like the creation
of keys or import/export of secret keys to GUI tools
with GnuPG.  Do these tasks using the command line.
Likewise, I haven't seen a GUI tool that implements
editing of keys adequately, especially since there have
been updates to the editing capabilities of the command
line tools in the past few months that the GUI tools haven't
caught up with yet.

Of course, it's unlikely that WinXP will allow 1.0.6 to
talk with the keyservers.  WinNT doesn't allow this.
Win95/98/ME does allow keyservers to be contacted by
GnuPG/MingW32 1.0.6, but the NT derivatives don't.
To talk with the keyservers you'll need to export the
public key back to PGP or you'll need to add WinPT
or follow some similar tactic.

One suggestion: if you are exporting a key created on one
of the softwares to the other, and things don't work right
for you, try changing the password of the key to a blank
password -- zero bytes -- before the export.  Change it
back on both softwares after importing, and be certain
not to allow the exported secret key file (with the blank
password) to survive.  Overwrite it.  Wipe it out.

So if you'd like to put the public key in question on a
keyserver somewhere, or even send it to the list or to me,
I'll look at it and see if I can come up with a suggestion.
There are a lot of other details that might need mentioning,
but I'd have to look up my notes on this before going very
far.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Liam Farr" <nz_liam@yahoo.co.uk>
To: <gnupg-users@gnupg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 7:58 PM
Subject: PGP 7.0.3 / GPG 1.0.6 compatibility.


> I'm a new user, and am having problems getting gpg 1.0.6 to read
> messages sent with pgp 7.0.3 .
>
> I am using the "GNU privacy assistant" plug-in four outlook (gpg
1.0.6),
> and am running outlook 2002 and win xp pro on both computers. I can
> encrypt and send messages from my gpg machine and decrypt them on my
pgp
> machine ok, but cannot decrypt messages encrypted by pgp machine on
my
> gpg machine.
>
> I get the following error from the GNU privacy assistant in a pop up
> dialog box "Cannot decrypt message with the paraphrase entered" even
> thought the paraphrase is correct.
>
> Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
> Cheers.
> Liam
>
>
>
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