Gnus/PGG password problem

Gnus/PGG password problem

[Norman Walsh]

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I've been using mailcrypt for years, but someone recently pointed out
that MIME is now the "standard" way to do signing. Fair enough, I'd be
happy to make the messages look a little less awkward in
non-encryption aware readers anyway.

So I'm trying to switch to PGG. I've removed all the mailcrypt stuff from
my .gnus file and replaced it with:

;; PGG
(require 'pgg)

(setq pgg-cache-passphrase t)
(setq pgg-passphrase-cache-expiry 3600)

;; Emacs should always decrypt and verify emails automatically
(setq mm-verify-option 'always)
(setq mm-decrypt-option 'always)

;; Automcatically sign when sending mails

(defun will-you-sign ()
  (interactive)
  (if (y-or-n-p "Do you want to sign this message? ")
     (mml-secure-message-sign-pgpmime)))

(add-hook 'gnus-message-setup-hook 'will-you-sign)

In a few minutes I'll probably get around to replacing will-you-sign with
sign-always, but that isn't the issue.

With the setup above, using Gnus 5.10.2, when I send a signed message,
it asks me for my key three times in a row (apparently once for each
destination that the message goes to, the outside world, the current
group, and the monthly archive group).

What's more, if I send another message right away, it asks me three
times again. It appears not to be caching the passphrase.

Clues, please?

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | The years teach us much which the days
http://nwalsh.com/            | never knew.-- Emerson

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Re: Gnus/PGG password problem

[Ivan Boldyrev]

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On 8599 day of my life Norman Walsh wrote:
> With the setup above, using Gnus 5.10.2, when I send a signed message,
> it asks me for my key three times in a row (apparently once for each
> destination that the message goes to, the outside world, the current
> group, and the monthly archive group).
>
> What's more, if I send another message right away, it asks me three
> times again. It appears not to be caching the passphrase.
>
> Clues, please?

It is known bug, and it was fixed in development version of Gnus (get
night snapshots or directly from CVS, but note, it is unstable version).

-- 
Ivan Boldyrev

                               Onions have layers.  Unix has layers too.

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Re: Gnus/PGG password problem

[Simon Josefsson]

Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> writes:

> (require 'pgg)
>
> (setq pgg-cache-passphrase t)

These shouldn't be needed with CVS.

> With the setup above, using Gnus 5.10.2, when I send a signed message,
> it asks me for my key three times in a row (apparently once for each
> destination that the message goes to, the outside world, the current
> group, and the monthly archive group).
>
> What's more, if I send another message right away, it asks me three
> times again. It appears not to be caching the passphrase.
>
> Clues, please?

Perhaps this is solved in Gnus 5.10.3 (i.e., CVS)?  I believe the
passphrase cache didn't work in 5.10.2.

Re: Gnus/PGG password problem

[Norman Walsh]

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/ Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> was heard to say:
[...]
| Perhaps this is solved in Gnus 5.10.3 (i.e., CVS)?  I believe the
| passphrase cache didn't work in 5.10.2.

Indeed it is, thanks.

One more question. I now see output like this when I read encrypted messages:

[[PGP Signed Part:Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>
  Untrusted, Fingerprint: 645D 8055 B685 E0EC 3B0B B507 3B29 6D51 CC18 5A3B]]

Now, I have my own public key in my pubring.gpg, so I would have
expected that to be "trusted". I expect this is some aspect of PGP
that I don't know enough about, rather than a gnus thing, but a
pointer would be appreciated.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | If youth is a fault, it is one soon
http://nwalsh.com/            | corrected.-- Goethe

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Re: Gnus/PGG password problem

[Bijan Soleymani]

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On Sun, Dec 21, 2003 at 10:53:35AM -0500, Norman Walsh wrote:
> One more question. I now see output like this when I read encrypted messages:
> 
> [[PGP Signed Part:Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>
>   Untrusted, Fingerprint: 645D 8055 B685 E0EC 3B0B B507 3B29 6D51 CC18 5A3B]]
> 
> Now, I have my own public key in my pubring.gpg, so I would have
> expected that to be "trusted". I expect this is some aspect of PGP
> that I don't know enough about, rather than a gnus thing, but a
> pointer would be appreciated.

pubring.gpg is just all the keys that gpg is aware of locally. I've got
the following lines in my gpg.conf:

keyserver pgp.mit.edu
keyserver-options auto-key-retrieve honor-http-proxy

These allow gpg to download people's keys automatically and add them to my
pubring.gpg.

However trust is a different thing. There is no way to trust someone
automatically. It's more something you have to do in person. So for
example you are sure that your key is yours. So you can trust it
completely.  To indicate this you have to "sign the key".

The following is from the gpg mini-howto at:
http://webber.dewinter.com/gnupg_howto/english/GPGMiniHowto.html

	"3.6 Key signing

	As mentioned before in the introduction there is one major
	Achilles' heel in the system. This is the authenticity of public
	keys. If you have a wrong public key you can say bye bye to
	the value of your encryption. To overcome such risks there
	is a possibility of signing keys. In that case you place your
	signature over the key, so that you are absolutely positive that
	this key is valid. This leads to the situation where the signature
	acknowledges that the user ID mentioned in the key is actually the
	owner of that key. With that reassurance you can start encrypting.

	Using the gpg --edit-key UID command for the key that needs to
	be signed you can sign it with the sign command.

	You should only sign a key as being authentic when you are
	ABSOLUTELY SURE that the key is really authentic!!!. So if you
	are positive you got the key yourself (like on a key signing
	party) or you got the key through other means and checked it
	(for instance by phone) using the fingerprint-mechanism. You
	should never sign a key based on any assumption.

	Based on the available signatures and "ownertrusts" GnuPG
	determines the validity of keys. Ownertrust is a value that
	the owner of a key uses to determine the level of trust for a
	certain key. The values are

	    * 1 = Don't know
	    * 2 = I do NOT trust
	    * 3 = I trust marginally
	    * 4 = I trust fully

	If the user does not trust a signature it can say so and thus
	disregard the signature. Trust information is not stored in the
	same file as the keys, but in a separate file."

Bijan
-- 
Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com>
http://www.crasseux.com

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