Question regards session key error

Nick Andriash andriash@telus.net
Fri Mar 8 16:50:02 2002


Hello Matthew561,

On Friday, March 08 2002 at 06:10 AM PDT, you wrote:

> Running PGP 6.02 PGP, 2.6.3ia-multi05 and GNUPG 1.06.  Messages
> generated with any version of PGP, no problem; however encrypted
> messages created with GNUPG crash with a "bad session key" error if
> opened in PGP.  I have RTFM, or FAQ, but I can see nothing about such
> an error or how to address/fix.

Are you using a front-end at all with GnuPG? The reason I ask is that in
my experience... limited as it may be... an error message like that
related to the Session Key usually indicate that the message was
encrypted with an Algo that is not supported on the receiving machine's
copy of PGP.

I think GnuPG defaults to 3DES if a common Algo cannot be found (while
PGP will default to either CAST5 or 3DES depending on version), but
sometimes when using a front-end you can 'force' GnuPG to use an
Algorithm regardless of the preferences found on the Public Key to which
you are encrypting. That may even be possible without using a front-end
by the option --cipher-algo <name>.


-- 
Nick Andriash
Courtenay, B.C. Canada