Session Key Questions

[Kevin Hilton]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 9:41 AM, Werner Koch <wk at gnupg.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:52, kevhilton at gmail.com said:
>
>> 1. How is the session key generated?  How is its entropy randomness
>> determined?  Is there a specific algorithm used to generate the key?
>
> It is a random number of course:
>
>   This random number generator is modelled after the one described in
>   Peter Gutmann's paper: "Software Generation of Practically Strong
>   Random Numbers". See also chapter 6 in his book "Cryptographic
>   Security Architecture", New York, 2004, ISBN 0-387-95387-6.
>
>> 2. Once generated, Im confused how its used.  When I use the gpg
>> --show-session-key option I receive:
>> gpg: session key:
>> `9:EB7DFF392EA4EDBC90A8836F82462CD0E0B5AB22D49141941CE252311ECD2D9C'
>
> That one is the encrypted using the public key algorithm (RSA or
> Elgamal) and prepended to the messaage as described in rfc4880.
>
>> 3. Is it possible to decrypt a gnupg encrypted message if I know the
>> decrypted session key?  How could this be accomplished?
>
> Yes, use:
>
>  --override-session-key string
>
>    Don't use the public key but the session key string.  The format of
>    this string is the same as the one printed by --show-session-key.
>    This option is normally not used but comes handy in case someone
>    forces you to reveal the content of an encrypted message; using this
>    option you can do this without handing out the secret key.
>
>
>
> Salam-Shalom,
>
>   Werner
>


Hmm,  this method works different than what I thought.  For example if
I specify a manual session key on the command line:
gpg -se -r KevDog --override-session-key 9:345DFG session_key_test_original

But then ask gpg to reveal session key
gpg --show-session-key session_key_test_original.gpg > decrypt

I get:
gpg: session key:
`9:B619909D1DE40EEAA4865A970522895560D6556561BCD8E2B6DEF6DB8E7DA34D'


I must be doing something wrong.