practical compatibility GnuPG/PGP

David T-G davidtg-gnupg@justpickone.org
Wed May 15 18:11:02 2002


--vkogqOf2sHV7VnPd
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Jeroen, et al --

=2E..and then Jeroen Valcke said...
%=20
% Hello,

Hi!


%=20
% Me and a colleague are trying to setup secure email communication.

Good idea :-)


% Problem is that my colleague uses PGPfreeware 7.0.3 on windows. Up until

He's probably using Outhouse to send his mail, right?


% now we were able to exchange public keys and verified them. When I
% receive a message from him I can decrypt it form the commandline.
% However my mailclient mutt doesn't seem to recognize the message as an
% encrypted message. I used the tutorial on
% http://codesorcery.net/mutt/mutt-gnupg-howto to configure mutt. Section
% XIV. Configuring Mutt For Use With GnuPG. Could anybody tell me what to
% adjust so that mutt recoginzes PGP encrypted messages?

You can see great, long, drawn-out discussions of this in the mutt-users
archives.  The short answer is that he's doing it "the old way", and if
he's using LookOut! then it's also broken.  Disadvantages of this inline
method include not handling attachments and being limited to US/ASCII
rather than any other charset.

When in the index, hit Esc and then P to tell mutt to check the message
for "traditional PGP".  You can see this and other commands by hitting
'?' to bring up the help (note that help is context-sensitive; you have to
be in the index to see the index help, and in the pager to see the pager
help, and so on), and there's always The Fine Manual for your perusal.

Meanwhile, you should be able to verify this message without any extra
work, because it's done "the right way", as a PGP/MIME message.


%=20
% Also when I sent an encrypted message to my colleague PGP doesn't
% recognize it neither. I read something in the faq about compatibility

That, again, is because his MUA is broken.


% http://www.gnupg.org/faq.html#q1.2 I added the 'compress-algo 1' line to
% my options file but no luck. Any other things to look for.

No, you don't need to tweak gpg.

I see that you're using an older version of mutt anyway, so you might
grab the sources for 1.3.99 (the 1.4 release candidate) as well as Dale
Wooledge's pgp-traditional patch and build a new version, or you might
download the 1.5.x version from the CVS server, and thus be able to set
the $pgp_create_traditional variable and have your pal see your messages
happily (though with the same attachment and charset caveats noted
above).  If you're not into compiling (I have quite a patch cocktail
going; you can see it at=20

  http://mutt.justpickone.org/cocktail/

if you're interested), then you can probably go farther back in the
archives and look at the macros that folks used to use before various
traditional and LockOut patches came around and sign/encrypt your mail
that way.  Or you could forget about bending over backwards and tell your
pal to use a real mail reader like you do ;-)


%=20
% Or perhaps somebody can round up some of the issues, small list, what to
% do exactly?

HTH & HAND


%=20
% That would be great.

Glad to help.  If you need more help, you should probably ask the
mutt-users list (but check the archives first, since these really are
*very* time-worn questions).


%=20
% -Jeroen-
%=20
% --=20
% Jeroen Valcke               jeroen@valcke.com  =20


:-D
--=20
David T-G                      * It's easier to fight for one's principles
(play) davidtg@justpickone.org * than to live up to them. -- fortune cookie
(work) davidtgwork@justpickone.org
http://www.justpickone.org/davidtg/    Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!


--vkogqOf2sHV7VnPd
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE84ojLGb7uCXufRwARAskEAKCwmhanBBY/65oeg0h14tvzBqQrEACePcvj
i2SndZSK4aAr4v6MQvAdQk0=
=MtJg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--vkogqOf2sHV7VnPd--